Bharat Jodo Yatra : In Haryana CM’s home district, Rahul meets protesting cane farmers

Bastara toll plaza is the same place where Haryana Police had cane charged farmers on August 28 last year when they were heading towards a state-level meeting of the BJP in Karnal. Then Karnal sub divisional magistrate Ayush Sinha, a 2018-batch IAS officer, was caught on camera allegedly instructing the police personnel to hit the protesting farmers on the head if they breached the cordon.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi walks sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s dog Luna during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Karnal, Saturday. Former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda and Olympian boxer Vijender Singh are also seen. PTI

The Yatra began with a two-hour delay and only after Gandhi, who had go back to New Delhi Friday night to meet his ailing mother Sonia Gandhi, returned. The Yatra resumed from Kohand village at about 8.15 am. It halted at Indri for the night from where it will move to Kurukshetra district Sunday morning.

The Kanyakumari to Kashmir march covered over 130 km in its first leg in Haryana from December 21 to 23, passing through Nuh, Gurugram and Faridabad districts. It re-entered Haryana on Thursday evening from Uttar Pradesh.

In the evening, Gandhi watched a Kabaddi match with senior leaders including Bhupinder Singh Hooda, K C Venugopal, Kumari Selja, and Deepender Singh Hooda accompanying him. The former Congress president later attended a ‘havan’ organised by the Ror community here.

Earlier in the day, Gandhi also interacted with a group of prominent sportspersons. Gandhi also met the OBC community representatives and a delegation of liberated nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes and had an in-depth discussion with them.

During the Yatra, Tosham MLA Kiran Choudhry slipped and sustained injury in her leg after which she was rushed to a private hospital in Karnal.

Meanwhile, Hooda claimed that the Yatra was getting overwhelming support from the public, including farmers, labourers and traders. “Ever since the yatra has come to Haryana, tremendous support is being received from every section of the society. This yatra
has turned into a mass movement”.

When asked about reports of infighting in the Haryana unit of the party, Hooda told reporters, “There is no infighting, the Congress is one.” To a question if the senior leaders who left the party between 2014 and 2019 would be eager to return to the fold after seeing the response the Bharat Jodo Yatra received, he replied, “The Congress is a sea, people keep coming and going.”

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said that 17 leaders rejoined the party in Jammu and Kashmir. “They had gone on a two-month leave. One of them has been a deputy chief minister and one was the state unit chief. All returned. You will see this in other states too.”

Asked about the possibility of Ghulam Nabi Azad will returning to the Congress, Ramesh said, “If he wants ‘Dil ki Azadi and Mann ki Azadi (freedom of heart and mind) then he will definitely return.”

Notably, 17 leaders of the newly formed Democratic Azad Party (DAP) in Jammu and Kashmir, including former deputy chief minister Tara Chand and ex-Pradesh Congress Committee chief Peerzada Mohammad Sayeed, on Friday returned to the Congress.

Ramesh also reiterated that the Yatra has not been organised to project Gandhi as a prime ministerial candidate for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. “It is an ideological yatra and Gandhi is its main face. But it is not an individual’s yatra. This is not an election yatra,” he said.

“The Yatra has been organised to reinforce and strengthen the Congress’s ideology, which stands diametrically opposite to the RSS ideology,” the veteran leader said.

Earlier, Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij mocked Gandhi saying the Congress is trying to project that he is no more a child and that he has grown up. “Parantu, make up badal kar, kalaakar Ramleela mein badle jaa sakte hain, vastavik jindagi mein nahi. (But, by changing the makeup, artistes can only be changed in Ramleela, not in the actual world),” he said.