Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said that the Bharat Jodo Yatra has come as a booster dose to the Congress and revived the party while the BJP and the RSS are now on the backfoot.
Speaking to mediapersons at Gundlupet in Chamarajanagar district on Friday, Mr. Jairam Ramesh said the yatra has resulted in the emergence of a ‘’new’ Rahul Gandhi and a new Congress.” The yatra is the ‘’sanjeevani’’ for the Congress and has stirred the party at the block, district and state levels, he added.
The yatra is setting the narrative in the country and this has made the BJP nervous, he claimed.
He said every other issue related to the party including the presidential elections is a ‘’sideshow’. The yatra is the main show and is setting the narrative, not the defection of MLAs in Goa or the developments in Rajasthan.
Mr.Jairam Ramesh said with respect to Bharat Jodi Yatra questions are asked as to who is breaking it and went on to say that it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies and governance that was weakening the fabric of India.
Under Modi’s India and his ideology there was widening of economic inequalities, unemployment, concentration of economic power in the hands of a few and a general weakening of the bonds that unites India. Besides, social polarisation has intensified and caste, religion, language, food and dress are being used to divide the society for electoral gains and Karnataka was an example of this polarisation, Mr. Jairam Ramesh said.
The Congress leader said under Mr. Modi the Constitution has taken a backseat and constitutional bodies have been weakened. ‘’All power resides in one man that is the Prime Minister and Mr. Modi is projected as Sarvajnani (all-knowing), Sarvavyapi (omnipresent) and Sarvashakti (all powerful), remarked Mr. Jairam Ramesh.
It is to counter this that the Bharat Jodo Yatra has been launched, he said and described it as the longest march by any political party or individual anywhere in the world as it covers 3,570 km in about five-and-a-half months..
