Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo yatra entered its fifth day in Punjab on Monday. Punjab has three regions, namely, Majha, Malwa and Doaba. It will be Rahul’s third day in the Doaba region. Today he resumed his yatra from the Kala Bakra village near Bhogpur in Jalandhar district at 7:00 am. The first break will take place at 11:00 am in the village of Kharal Kalan. And from there it will resume at 3:00 pm and proceed towards Tanda Urmur in district Hoshiarpur on the Jalandhar Pathankot National Highway. The yatra will halt at 6:00 pm and the night stay would be at Khudda near Tanda. Yesterday, Rahul had heaped praises on the people of Punjab on his Facebook handle. Rahul wrote, Blessed by five rivers, Punjab is known for its fertile land. But even nature's gifts must be nurtured and worked upon for them to yield benefits. It is the Tapasya of the people of Punjab that has turned this land of great opportunity into a land of prosperity, over time. “Their tapasya has also made the people of Punjab fearless, generous, warm and compassionate. As I walk through this remarkable state, every heart I connect with has a common story to tell, a story of true love for India.” Out of his eighth days yatra in Punjab including one day halt on the Lohari festival on January 13, Rahul is spending four days in Doaba itself which is more than half. Doaba, which has 1/5 representation in the state assembly, had given 10 out of 18 seats that Congress had won in Punjab during the 2022 assembly elections. Also, Doaba has the highest percentage of the Dalit population in the country. Rahul Gandhi had started the Punjab leg of his Bharat Yatra from the historical Fatehgarh Sahib on January 11 and entered Ludhiana from there and remained there till January 12. Rahul resumed it on January 14 from Ludhiana- Jalandhar border and entered the Doaba region from Phillaur. But on the same day, he had to suspend it just two hours after its resumption because of the sudden demise of sitting Lok Sabha MP from Jalandhar Santokh Singh Chaudhary, who died while walking in the yatra. After the cremation of Chaudhry which was attended by Rahul, the Yatra resumed at 3:30 pm again on Sunday from Jalandhar’s Lyallpur Khalsa college and it went peacefully till its halt at 6:30 pm in Adampur.
