Congress leader Rahul Gandhi addressing crowd of supporters as Bharat Jodo Yatra reaches Red Fort in New Delhi on Saturday (Express/Chitral Khambati)Bharat Jodo Yatra, Delhi highlights: After the Bharat Jodo Yatra reached the Red Fort in New Delhi Saturday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that the BJP government was spreading hatred between Hindus and Muslims to divert the country from real issues. Gandhi also said, “this is not PM Modi’s, but Ambani and Adani’s government”.
Actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan joined the yatra in the afternoon near ITO. Meanwhile, Congress leaders Priyanka Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi joined Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in Delhi Saturday morning. Upon entering Delhi, Gandhi said the purpose of the Yatra is to showcase “real Hindustan” where people help each other, unlike RSS and BJP’s version of a hate-filled one. “There is no nafrat in this yatra. If somebody falls, everybody helps them. This is the real Hindustan. Not the BJP’s and RSS’s hatred-filled Hindustan,” said Gandhi while addressing a gathering at the Delhi border. He also thanked the “lakhs of people” who provided love and support to the rally.
Traffic was affected in parts of southeast Delhi as the yatra entered the city. The traffic police had issued an advisory on Friday cautioning commuters about the routes that were likely to be affected by the yatra. The yatra will cover a roughly 23 km stretch in Delhi, starting from the Badarpur border where it entered the capital city from Haryana, and culminating at Red Fort. It will pass through Nizamuddin, India Gate, ITO, Delhi Gate and Daryaganj. After a day’s march through Delhi, the yatra will halt for around 9 days before resuming on January 3.
Part of the project is a mobile lab that will collect data on pollution levels in different parts of the city.
The Ashram flyover was supposed to be completed by the end of December. (Express Photo)
Busy traversing the country as part of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi skipped the Winter Session of Parliament that concluded on Friday.
In the 17th Lok Sabha, the Congress leader’s parliamentary attendance stands at 53 per cent, as per PRS Legislative Research. This is way below the 79 per cent national average of MPs’ attendance, according to data PRS compiled till December 21. Gandhi represents Wayanad in Kerala. The average attendance of MPs from Kerala is 84 per cent. Know more here
Sharing a picture with his mother and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi as she joined him in the Delhi leg of the Bharat Jodo Yatra Saturday, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said he was spreading the love in the country that he received from her.
A day after the Bharat Jodo Yatra, the Delhi Traffic Police said on Sunday that there is no congestion on arterial roads and personnel have been deployed to control traffic in other parts. However, the traffic police said that extra forces will be deployed in view of Christmas and the Swami Shradhanand Martyrdom Day procession and advised people headed to the airports and railway stations to leave early. Read what the advisory says
A day after the Centre announced the revision in the pensions paid under the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme, terming it a “historic decision”, the Congress on Saturday claimed that Rahul Gandhi’s meeting with ex-servicemen during the Bharat Jodo Yatra was responsible for the decision. Know more here
Senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad charged Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with harbouring ‘talkhi' (bitterness) over loss of political power and speaking of ‘mohabbat' (love) during the 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' to hide the same. (PTI)
As Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra arrived in the national capital, BJP took aim at the Congress leader, with its national spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla saying that “after walking 2,800 km Rahul Baba couldn’t find nafrat and hinsa in India”. Read what he wrote on Twitter here
With the Red Fort as a backdrop, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who led the Bharat Jodo Yatra into the Capital Saturday, attacked the BJP, accusing it of “relentlessly spreading fear and hatred” across the country to “divert” attention from people being “crippled economically”.
Claiming that TV channels are “controlled by powers who want to spread hatred,” he said “24 ghanta Hindu-Muslim, Hindu-Muslim” is aired. Read more here
The stretch of the Bharat Jodo Yatra in the national capital forced the city to stop and watch as it made its way through 23 long kilometers, touching key points including India Gate, Ashram and ITO before culminating at Red Fort.
From lawyers near the Patiala House Courts complex close to India Gate to construction workers near Pragati Maidan, the spectacle of thousands of people marching through the city with flags, posters and music drew many eyeballs. Read more here
Tavleen Singh writes: If this variant is truly a matter of concern, should it not have made its presence felt at those election rallies where not a single political leader or anyone in the audience was masked? Read more here
The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday claimed the BJP was planning to support an Independent candidate for Delhi mayor and dared it to field its own candidate for the top MCD post.
Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor, however, advised the AAP to keep its councillors united instead of advising the saffron party on the mayor's election.
At a press conference, senior AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chadha claimed that after losing the MCD polls, the BJP had said it would not field any candidate for the mayor's post. (PTI)
New toilets will be built and old ones will be repaired across five zones of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi as part of the civic body's preparations for the G20 summit, officials said on Saturday.
Several roads and parks will be beautified, trees illuminated and public art will be installed at many locations in Delhi, according to civic officials.
Work for the construction of new community toilet complexes (CTCs) and public toilets (PTs) and to repair the old ones has been intensified, the MCD said in a statement. The work would be carried out in five zones -- Karol Bagh, South, Central, Shahdara South and City SP -- of the MCD. These zones have been marked as important as regards tourist attractions and large footfall, it said. (PTI)
A dense layer of fog engulfed parts of the national capital Saturday morning reducing visibility to 100 metres, and affecting road and rail traffic, while the Ridge area recorded a cold wave.
The Safdarjung Observatory, the national capital's primary weather station, recorded the minimum temperature at 5.4 degrees Celsius, three notches below normal, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The mercury dropped to 4 degrees Celsius, four notches below normal, at the Ridge weather station, making it the coldest place in the capital. Aynagar recorded a minimum temperature of 4.4 degrees Celsius and Mungeshpur 4.1 degrees Celsius.
Foggy weather delayed 14 trains by 1.30 to 3.30 hours, railway officials said. (PTI)
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia has written to Delhi LG V K Saxena seeking renewal of agencies providing free lab tests at the city government hospitals and mohalla clinics.
The minister urged Saxena to decide on the matter soon.
“Contract for lab services in Delhi government hospitals and mohalla clinics ends on December 31, 2022. New contract needs to be signed immediately to enable new service provider to start working from Jan 1. It will cause huge inconvenience to the people if there is a gap,” he said. Read more
Fondly called the lifeline of the national capital, the Delhi Metro started with a small section spanning 8.4 km from Shahdara to Tis Hazari, and now, after 20 years since kicking off, is spread over 380 km of network, comprising ten colour-coded lines. The largest metro network in India with many advanced technologies such as driverless metro on two corridors, the expansion has been one of the fastest in the world as more than 380 km of new lines have been added since 2002.
The Delhi Metro operations commenced on December 24, 2002, after then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee flagged off the first train on the 8.4 km-long corridor in the Red Line. Since then, the network has expanded exponentially across Delhi-NCR. Read more
A late night visit to shelter homes shocked Delhi L-G VK Saxena when he found that lack of toilets and space there was forcing many to defecate along Yamuna and sleep on the pavements.
According to his office, Saxena on Friday night visited the shelter home near Kashmere Gate and spoke to occupants in and around the shelters. Saxena asked them about the facilities being provided to them and took stock of the arrangements and amenities at these homes, they said.
The people told him that many of them were forced to sleep on roadside and pavements, since the night shelters could only house 600 and there are about 5,000 homeless like them in the area.
He was told that the homes provide food only to occupants registered with the shelters, which means thousand others were forced to look for a dinner elsewhere. They also flagged an acute shortage of toilets at the shelter homes, which forced them to use open spaces along Yamuna bank, the officials said. (PTI)
At the height of the campaign in Gujarat, at a well-attended rally, Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Purushottam Rupala made quite the boast. At a well-attended rally in Vadodara, he said: “Look at the crowd and no one is wearing a mask, neither am I… Two days ago, there was news that a city in China has been put under lockdown. A country like China has to grope in the dark to come out of Covid and you and I are sitting here and holding massive gatherings without masks… This doesn’t happen so easily. Remember the days of the lockdown and the grim situation we were in… Modiji has brought us out of it.” Earlier this week, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya wrote to Rahul Gandhi asking him to either follow “all Covid protocols” or suspend the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Read the full Opinion piece here
Sharing a picture with his mother and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi as she joined him in the Delhi leg of the Bharat Jodo Yatra Saturday, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said he was spreading the love in the country that he received from her. Rahul’s tweet, showing his emotional bond with his mother, went viral on social media. Read more
The fate of democracy often rests on the quality of the political Opposition. This is even truer when the government uses all its institutional power to disadvantage the Opposition. How does the Opposition create space? This is one perspective from which to look at the Bharat Jodo Yatra, a novel attempt to create a new political space. It is often in the nature of imaginative political actions like the Yatra, that its effects are discovered after the fact. An act of political improvisation can itself lead to new forms of knowledge and identification. Pratap Bhanu Mehta writes
As a senior Congress leader and, sometimes, participant in the Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY), I am grateful to Suhas Palshikar and Pratap Bhanu Mehta for their thought-provoking articles on successive days (‘One hundred days of Yatra’, December 22 and ‘Yatra, without arrival’, December 23) as the Yatra takes a well-deserved break after more than hundred days on the road.
Mehta quite correctly describes the Yatra as “an amalgamation of pilgrimage and penance that deploys the grammar of the national movement”. That being so, it is essential to underline that movements like Quit India in 1942 and the Salt Satyagraha in 1930 contained a simple and direct message, as this Yatra does. While there can be no denying the need to concentrate on “concrete issues” like the Uniform Civil Code, this Yatra will fail if it gets sidetracked from its main purpose of uniting a divided country into dealing with specifics, even as “Bharat chhodo” and “karenge ya marenge” in 1942 would have lost their appeal if the messaging had gone into the myriad issues that the coming of Independence (and Partition) raised. The immediate goal is “consciousness raising” to set the stage for intense political propagation on specific matters of contention. Mani Shankar Aiyar writes
Actor-turned politician and Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) president Kamal Haasan on Saturday joined the Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in New Delhi.
Haasan, during a speech at the Red Fort, said, “Many people asked me why I’m here. I’m here as an Indian. My father was a Congressman. I have had various ideologies and started my own political party but when it comes to the country, all party lines have to blur. I blurred that line and came here.” Read more
After the Bharat Jodo Yatra reached the Red Fort in New Delhi Saturday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi addressed a huge group of gathering. (Express/Chitral Khambati)
Addressing a gathering of workers as the Bharat Jodo Yatra reached Red Fort in New Delhi on Saturday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said, "Prime Minister, BJP spent thousands of crores to destroy my image, but I showed truth to country in just a month".
A day after the Centre announced the revision in the pensions paid under the One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme, terming it a “historic decision”, the Congress on Saturday claimed that Rahul Gandhi’s meeting with ex-servicemen during the Bharat Jodo Yatra was responsible for the decision.
Taking to Twitter, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh shared a press release and said, “OROP ki chronology samjhiye (Understand the chronology of OROP). This is the impact of the #BharatJodoYatra.” Read more
The Bharat Jodo Yatra will now take a nine-day break and resume on January 3, 2023. It will begin from New Delhi, move to Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and end in Jammu and Kashmir.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said, "Have not seen violence, hatred anywhere in the country while walking hundreds of Kms, but see it on TV all the time". Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra reached the Red Fort in New Delhi and is likely to take a break for the next nine days.
Addressing a crowd at Red Fort in New Delhi, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that the BJP government was spreading hate between Hindus and Muslims to divert attention from real issues in the country.
After the Bharat Jodo Yatra reached Red Fort in New Delhi on Saturday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, addressing a crowd of supporters said, "this is not PM Modi's but Ambani and Adani's government".
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Saturday said that the BJP government was scared after seeing the Bharat Jodo Yatra and has used Covid-19 as an excuse to stop it.
Speaking at Red Fort, Kharge said, "Like Kamal Haasan said, for the country we are all the same and are with Rahul ji. The freedom to speak and think is being taken away today. People with good vichardhaara are also being frightened and threatened."
After joining the Bharat Jodo Yatra march in New Delhi on Saturday, actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan said, 'Many people ask me why I'm here. I'm here as an Indian. My father was a Congressman. I had various ideologies and started my own political party but when it comes to the country, all political party lines have to blur. I blurred that line and came here'. (ANI)
The Congress on Saturday welcomed the government's decision to revise the pension of ex-servicemen under the 'one rank, one pension' scheme and said it is the result of the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra which raised the issue. Congress general secretary communications Jairam Ramesh said one should "understand the chronology" of the issue as ex-servicemen had only two days ago met Rahul Gandhi during the Yatra and highlighted the issue.
"We are happy that pension arrears of ex-servicemen will be given. This is the direct effect of the Bharat Jodo Yatra... Rahul ji's meeting yielded the decision of the union cabinet two days later. We welcome this decision," Ramesh told reporters at a press conference during the morning halt of the Bharat Jodo Yatra. "Understand the chronology of OROP. This is the impact of the Bharat Jodo Yatra," he later said. (PTI)
Actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra which is currently taking in place in New Delhi. (Express/Chitral Khambhati)
Pramod Sehwag weighed 140 kg some three months ago. And like every overweight person he too had tried shedding some weight but could never sustain a rigorous exercise regimen or dieting. But in the last three months, the 41-year-old has lost around 20 kg.
Sehwag, a Congress leader from Jind in Haryana, had been walking with Rahul Gandhi as part of his Bharat Jodo Yatra for the last three months. The Kanyakumari to Kashmir Yatra, which began on September 7, reached Delhi on Saturday morning after crossing nine states and covering over 2,500 km. Manoj CG writes
Actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra which is currently taking in place in New Delhi.
Traffic was affected in parts of Delhi on Saturday as the Congress' Bharat Jodo Yatra, led by party leader Rahul Gandhi, entered the city. Vehicular movement was affected in southeast Delhi in the morning as the yatris marched into the city, and later on in the vicinity of India Gate as they resumed their walk in the afternoon after a break.
The traffic police had issued an advisory on Friday cautioning commuters about the routes that were likely to be affected by the yatra. The yatra made its morning halt in the national capital at Ashram chowk at 11 am and later resumed at 1 PM. The yatra is heading towards the Red Fort via the Mathura road, India Gate and ITO.
Police have put up sign boards requesting the yatris to march on the left side of the road. Cars and other vehicles were seen moving at a slow pace due the congestion during the morning phase of the yatra. (PTI)
The Centre should issue 'mandatory' protocols to prevent spread of COVID-19 and everyone, be it a political party or someone taking out a march, must follow them, the AAP said on Saturday in a veiled reference to Congress' 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' led by Rahul Gandhi.
Addressing a press conference, the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) national spokesperson Raghav Chadha said the Centre should issue mandatory protocols to avoid the situation that the country witnessed during the first and second wave of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
The country witnessed a major crisis during the last two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic due to the Centre's failure in understanding the 'seriousness' of the initial scientific indications about the spread of the virus, he also charged. "So far I know the Centre has not yet issued any mandatory protocols. If such protocols are issues, everyone must show respect to them and follow, be it a political party or someone taking out any yatra," Chadha told reporters when asked for his party's stand on the row over Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya's 'follow COVID-19 guidelines' letter to Gandhi. (PTI)
The Bharat Jodo Yatra is currently in it's last 3-4 kms heading to Red Fort from ITO, before it takes a halt for the next nine days.
Busy traversing the country as part of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi skipped the Winter Session of Parliament that concluded on Friday. In the 17th Lok Sabha, the Congress leader’s parliamentary attendance stands at 53 per cent, as per PRS Legislative Research. This is way below the 79 per cent national average of MPs’ attendance, according to data PRS compiled till December 21. Gandhi represents Wayanad in Kerala. The average attendance of MPs from Kerala is 84 per cent. Read more
In Pictures: The Bharat Jodo Yatra entered Delhi on Saturday morning with thousands from Haryana and the national capital joining it at the Badarpur border. (Express Photo by Chitral Khambati)
A group of blind students from South Delhi's Lajpat Nagar area set up a camp on one of the routes of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra in Delhi on Saturday. Around 15-20 blind students gathered on the route of Apollo hospital holding banners and chanting slogans “Nafrat Chodo, Bharat Jodo” (forget hatred, unite India).
Speaking to PTI, a blind student, Saransh, said they participated in the Yatra to “protest against rising unemployment” in the country. He said there are several blind students who have excelled in education but remained unemployed for years. (PTI)
Rahul Gandhi visited the dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya as the yatra passed through Nizamuddin in Delhi.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh joined Bharat Jodo Yatra at Nizamuddin in New Delhi.
(Express Photo by Chitral Khambhati)
(Express Photo by Chitral Khambhati)
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday announced he is going for Vipassana meditation, while advising people to go for it once.
Vipassana is an ancient Indian meditation technique in which practitioners abstain from any communication, either by talking or via gestures, for an extended period to restore their mental well-being.
It was not immediately clear as to where the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo would practise Vipassana. Kejriwal, a regular practitioner of Vipassana, has made use of the technique with sessions in Dharamkot, Nagpur, and Bengaluru in the past. (PTI)
Among those who had gathered to greet the yatra along its route in the morning was a group of visually impaired students from the Institution for the Blind at Panchkuian Road. Raman Singh, 21, a third-year BA student at Delhi University said, "We are also troubled by this government. We came to support the yatra."
A huge crowd is seen at Ashram as the yatra will be resumed shortly. Roads are blocked completely owing to the crowd.
(Express Photo by Chitral Khambhati)
"This is the 108th day. In 108 days, the physical struggle that the yatris have faced is there. But the BJP has also tried to intensify our struggles. Yatra ko badnaam karne ka prayaas hua. Now the government is talking about Covid-19, every day there's a statement, a warning. The government is yours, bring out an order saying big gatherings are not allowed or masks are compulsory. No such announcement has been made." Congress leader Pawan Khera said.
Addressing a press conference, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said, "we have covered nine states and around 3570 km so far. The yatra will resume on January 3. It will go to Uttar Pradesh, back to Haryana and then to Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir. Maintenance of the containers will be done in the meantime. When we go to Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, heating facilities will be made available in the containers. Some containers also need more work."
Kamil Hussain, 30, a construction worker from Bareilly who lives in Seelampur, said he joined the yatra to meet Rahul Gandhi.
"The BJP makes big promises but doesn't deliver. Our village in Bareilly lacks even basic facilities like water. I came here at the cost of a day's work of around Rs. 500 to 600. But I think this is important. It's people like us who are dealing with issues of rising expenses and the yatra talks about these things. Most parties have no concern for the poor. Even this party might forget when they are voted to power. But at least they are raising these issues now," he said
Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra has reached Ashram. The yatris will take a break now and will resume the walk in the afternoon.
Swaraj India Chief Yogendra Yadav joined Bharat Jodo Yatra in Delhi.
(Express Photo by Chitral Khambhati)
(Express Photo by Chitral Khambhati)
Traffic was briefly halted with barricades and ropes as the yatra reached Ashram.
Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra, which entered the capital city early Saturday morning, will reach Ashram shortly. At Ashram chowk, the yatra will briefly halt and will resume at 1 PM.
A fire has broken out in a kirana at the DDA Market in Vikaspuri's H-Block around 5.50 a.m on Saturday. The Delhi Fire Service has dispatched around 11 fire tenders to control the blaze. No casualties are reported so far.