For the Congress, its much hyped Bharat Jodo Yatra is supposed to be a brilliant strategy of going to the people and being on the road to highlight failures of the ruling BJP government and get positive vibes in the run up to the 2024 parliamentary elections. Rahul Gandhi, who has turned his back on the party organisation, hopes to propel himself as the leader to challenge Modi will lead the yatra which will pass through 12 states and culminate in Jammu and Kashmir. The Bharat Jodo Yatra which kicked off on September 7 will cover some 3500 kms in around 150 days and expected end sometime during the first week of February 2023. However, even as the Yatra began, the defection of eight Goa Congress MLAs to BJP on September 15, instead attracted negative attention for the party. The defection only exposed the inherent Achilles heel of the party at a time when it sought to project itself as the only viable alternative to the BJP. To add to the party\u2019s embarrassment, the election turned out to be just the opposite of what the yatra sought to achieve. The Gandhis wanted to handpick a loyalist to counter Sashi Tharoor,Lok Sabha MP,a skilled orator but with little organisational experience. Eventually the Gandhis and their close confidants convinced Ashok Gehlot to contest. However, Gehlot wanted the best of both- party president as well as continue as chief minister of Rajasthan- to which the Gandhis refused. Gehlot realised he would have to give up the post of chief minister and that the Gandhis would then pick his arch foe, Sachin Pilot to replace him. Gehlot was determined not to allow Pilot to replace him and so his camp defied the high command on September 26 over change in leadership in Rajasthan.Gehlot then decided to quit from the race as being chief minister was any day better than a rubber stamp party president. Sachin has been denied for the second time. He was supposed to be the chief minister after engineering the organisation to a brilliant poll win in 2018 but the Gandhis pulled veteran family adviser Gehlot from semi-retirement as chief minister. Sachin continues to wait but there is hardly much time left before Rajasthan goes to the polls in 2023 and he can ill afford to wait till Gehlot finishes him politically. This should be the biggest worry for the Congress. Meanwhile, Digvijaya Singh, old warhorse from Madhya Pradesh, was to challenge Sashi Thoroor. However, the Gandhi loyalists picked Mallikarjun Kharge( RS member and party leader) at the eleventh hour to contest. Kharge has the full backing of the entire Gandhi family loyalist and certain of winning the contest. To strike a chord, Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot said that Mallikarjun Kharge has the experience to strengthen the Congress and would emerge as a clear winner, while his rival Shashi Tharoor belongs to the \u201celite class\u201d. It may be recalled that Tharoor said if elected, he would do away with the high command culture; while Kharge reaffirmed he will remain loyal to the Nehru-Gandhi family and always abide by their directions. Assuming that Kharge will be the next Congress president, it will mean that the party has chosen the past and is unwilling for change in Tharoor, a man of the future. Unfortunately for the Congress, this is the message that will overshadow the Bharat Jodo Yatra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the Congress, its much hyped Bharat Jodo Yatra is supposed to be a brilliant strategy of going to the people and being on the road to highlight failures of the ruling BJP government and get positive vibes in the run up to the 2024 parliamentary elections. Rahul Gandhi, who has turned his back on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-300634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300634\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}