Rahul Gandhi-led nationwide Bharat Jodo Yatra has successfully sent out Congress’ strong message of solidarity with common Indians in their fight against hate, unemployment, and inflation, said Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel on Monday.
Speaking to The New Indian in Srinagar after the culmination of the yatra, the senior Congress leader demanded the restoration of the statehood of Jammu and Kashmir and the conduct of elections at the earliest.
Bhagel called the national flag hoisting by Gandhi at Srinagar’s historic Lal Chowk on Sunday as something “beyond imagination”.
“This yatra has successfully sent out a strong message to people of this country with regards to the aims envisaged by Gandhi when he launched the yatra – unity against hate, inflation and unemployment,” he said.
The Congress leader, considered close to the Gandhi scion, said the Kanyakumari-Srinagar foot march has “created a new environment which will benefit the country”.
“Our fight is against the people who are weakening democracy in this country,” Baghel declared, in a reference to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
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Earlier this morning, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge hoisted the Tricolour at the party’s Srinagar office to mark the culmination of the yatra, which passed through Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh over a period of 134 days.
Incidentally, a week earlier, the Congress party had cancelled the flag hoisting at Lal Chowk by Gandhi, calling the hoisting of the national flag at the historic site “an RSS agenda”.
Addressing a press conference after the event, Gandhi – a former Congress chief who currently represents Kerala’s Wayanad in the Lok Sabha – said that India has lost access to 2000 square kilometres of land to China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on the eastern front.
“The Prime Minister of India is frankly the only person in the country who is under the impression that the Chinese have not taken any land from India. I recently met some ex-army people and even the Ladakhi delegation had clearly said that 2,000 square kilometres of Indian territory have been taken over by the Chinese,” Gandhi told media persons.