Ex-R&AW chief A S Dulat now joins Bharat Jodo Yatra, calls it ‘exceptional’
Days after former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra, former Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) chief A S Dulat on Tuesday walked with senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as his cross-country march resumed from Delhi.
In a sharp attack, the BJP questioned the move by the “controversial” Dulat. “No one ever accused Dulat of being committed either to his job or the country he was meant to serve, supped with secessionists and Pakistan’s deep state and has a monumental role in Kashmir fiasco,” BJP IT cell in-charge Amit Malviya tweeted.
Like Rajan, Dulat had received a personal invitation from Rahul to join the Yatra. The Congress leader wrote personal letters to several prominent personalities, calling them to participate in the march “designed to awaken the nation’s conscience to crippling inequality, brutal social polarisation and violent authoritarianism”.
‘My brother the warrior, with shield of truth’: Priyanka’s first address to Bharat Jodo is an ode to Rahul
In her first address as part of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday showered praises on Rahul Gandhi.
Joining the Yatra as it entered Uttar Pradesh, the state she is in-charge of as Congress general secretary, Vadra hailed brother Rahul for everything from walking 3,000 km to “withstanding cold in a T-shirt” to “not being bought by Ambani and Adani”.
It was quite a family affair at a time when the Congress is trying to distance itself from dynastic charges and recently held elections where a non-Gandhi became party president after more than two decades. Rahul showed his appreciation with a tight hug of Vadra on stage.
Vadra was addressing a gathering at Loni in Ghaziabad, where the Bharat Jodo Yatra crossed into from Delhi on Tuesday, on its 109th day, having started from Kanyakumari in September and set to conclude in Srinagar, Kashmir, on January 30.
Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday wondered if there were winds of "change" in Uttar Pradesh as he claimed that Rahul Gandhi and others in the Bharat Jodo Yatra were greeted by people at the BJP office in Barauli in Baghpat district. He also talked about the letter Acharya Satyendra Das, chief priest of the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple, wrote to Gandhi on Yatra and the "praise" by Champat Rai, secretary of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust.
"After a letter from the head priest of Ayodhya Ram temple welcoming Bharat Jodo Yatra and the praise for Rahul Gandhi from VHP leaders like Champat Rai, the yatris were greeted with enthusiastic hand-waving from the BJP office in Baghpat's Barauli today," Ramesh said in a tweet in Hindi. "Signs of climate change in Yogi's state?" the Congress general secretary said on Twitter. (PTI)
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After the National Conference, whose supremo Farooq Abdullah joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Delhi, the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) on Wednesday became the second Opposition party to join Rahul Gandhi’s march. Other non-BJP parties in Uttar Pradesh to whom the Congress had reached out had welcomed Rahul’s initiative but decided to stay away, including RLD ally Samajwadi Party.
On Wednesday, the RLD top leadership welcomed the Congress leader as his Yatra entered Baghpat, RLD chief Jayant Chaudhary’s home district. They will also be present during the Yatra’s Shamli stretch on Thursday, after which the march will cross over into Haryana. Amit Sharma, Asad Rehman write
Adopting a route often taken by his predecessor Sonia Gandhi after electoral defeats, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge today set up a three-member committee to look into the party’s rout in the Assembly elections in Gujarat last month. The panel has also been asked to suggest corrective steps.
The committee, headed by former Maharashtra minister Nitin Raut and consisting of Lok Sabha MP Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka and Bihar MLA Shakeel Ahmad Khan, has been asked to “evaluate the results” and “suggest measures to be taken, with immediate effect.” Manoj CG Writes
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge will launch a state-wide padayatra of the party from Bihar's Banka district on Thursday. The 1,200-km-long foot march will be on the lines of Bharat Jodo Yatra of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and will cover 17 districts, before concluding in Gaya. "The Congress president will flag off the padayatra from Mandar Parvat area in Banka on January 5. He is expected to reach the venue around 11.30 am, and after addressing the gathering, he will launch the padayatra," Bihar Congress media in-charge Rajesh Rathore told PTI.
"When the rally reaches Patna, a huge rally will be organised which will be addressed either by Sonia Gandhi or Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, depending upon their availability. Rahul Gandhi will be at a public meeting during the conclusion of the foot march. He will be through with Bharat Jodo Yatra by that time," he said. (PTI)
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a white t-shirt in the biting cold has been a hot topic of discussion -- and not just in top political circles. As the yatra resumed after the new year break, hundreds of Congress workers from Amethi walked in the Uttar Pradesh leg of the march donning white tees. After a night stay in Mavikalan village in Baghpat, the march led by Gandhi started its onward journey Wednesday morning. He was again seen wearing the white t-shirt that he has sported for much of the journey.
The Kanyakumari-to-Kashmir yatra will travel through Uttar Pradesh for two days and enter Haryana's Panipat by Thursday evening via Baghpat and Shamli. Over 1,200 party workers from Amethi, the erstwhile Congress bastion which elected Rahul Gandhi to Parliament three times in a row before his defeat in 2019, joined the march at Ghaziabad's Loni border on Tuesday. (PTI)
After the chief priest of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, Satyendra Das, extended support to the Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, Shri Ram Janmbhoomi Teerth Kshetra secretary Champat Rai has also appreciated Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s efforts to “understand the country”.
Das, in a letter responding to the Congress’s invitation to join the march, wished for the Yatra’s success. The Yatra entered Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday. “May you (Rahul Gandhi) be healthy and have a long life. The work that you are doing for the betterment of the country is in the direction of sarvajan hitaya, sarvajan sukhaya (betterment and happiness of all)… Prabhu Ram Lalla ki kripa aapke upar bani rahe (May the blessings of Lord Ram Lalla always be with you),” the priest said. Read more
From stopping for lunch and holding a public rally to making a night halt in Anaj Mandis (grain markets) and villages. The second leg of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in Haryana will see him traverse farm belts, which the Congress hopes will strike a chord with the farmers in the state.
Since coming out in support of the farmers’ year-long agitation against the now-repealed three controversial central agriculture laws during 2020-21, the Haryana Congress has been seeking to champion the farmers’ cause aggressively. During the recently-concluded winter session of the Haryana Assembly, the Leader of Opposition from the Congress, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, strongly raised various issues relating to farmers in the House. Read more
As the yatra resumed in Uttar Pradesh, Congress said it aims to uproot hatred from the state. In a Tweet in the Hindi language, the Congress said the yatra will take the path of love, peace, and brotherhood and will wipe out hatred from Uttar Pradesh.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a white t-shirt in the biting cold has been a hot topic of discussion -- and not just in top political circles. As the yatra resumed after the new year break, hundreds of Congress workers from Amethi walked in the Uttar Pradesh leg of the march donning white tees.
After a night stay in Mavikalan village in Baghpat, the march led by Gandhi started its onward journey Wednesday morning. He was again seen wearing the white t-shirt that he has sported for much of the journey.
The Kanyakumari-to-Kashmir yatra will travel through Uttar Pradesh for two days and enter Haryana's Panipat by Thursday evening via Baghpat and Shamli.
Over 1,200 party workers from Amethi, the erstwhile Congress bastion which elected Rahul Gandhi to Parliament three times in a row before his defeat in 2019, joined the march at Ghaziabad's Loni border on Tuesday. (PTI)
Comedian Rajeev Nigam joined Bharat Jodo Yatra on Wednesday.
Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party president Om Prakash Rajbhar has claimed that he had received an invitation through Congress leader Salman Khurshid to attend Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra, but decided not to participate after talking to party leaders.
Rajbhar, a former BJP ally, also said there are no permanent friends or enemies in politics.
"No one had imagined an alliance between the SP and BSP in Uttar Pradesh, Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar and the BJP and PDP in Kashmir," he told reporters on Tuesday when asked about the possibility of joining hands with the BJP again.
He asserted the BJP is in a very strong position in Uttar Pradesh and no party has the power to defeat Narendra Modi. (PTI)
Acharya Satyendra Das, chief priest of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya, has written a letter to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, praising the objective of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, and wishing him the best.
The VHP, with whom Satyendra Das has had a somewhat uneasy past, regretted the move, saying the priest should have taken into account the history of the Congress when it came to Lord Ram.
Satyendra Das said political motives should not be read into the letter. “The blessings of Ram are for everyone who seeks them,” he told The Indian Express.
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Almost three years after he likened the burning of a public school, targeted during the 2020 Northeast Delhi riots, to “the destruction of values such as brotherhood, unity and love in the country”, Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra took the same route reiterating the message Tuesday.
The yatra resumed for its last leg in Delhi before entering Uttar Pradesh, from where it will go to Haryana, Punjab and finally end in Kashmir on January 30.
He started from the Marghat Hanuman Mandir in Kashmere Gate and proceeded to Northeast Delhi before entering Ghaziabad, from where it will progress further on Wednesday.
Jatin Anand reports
Assam Pradesh Congress Committee president Bhupen Kumar Borah joined Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra in Uttar Pradesh today.
Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra resumed from Mavikala in Uttar Pradesh Wednesday morning. The Yatra entered UP Tuesday afternoon from Delhi.
Almost three years after he likened the burning of a public school, targeted during the Northeast Delhi riots of 2020, to “the destruction of values such as brotherhood, unity and love in the country”, Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra took the same route Tuesday reiterating the message.
From the resumption of the Yatra in Delhi from Marghat Hanuman Mandir in Kashmiri Gate, where Rahul paid obeisance, to its route through the 2020 riot-hit areas – Seelampur, Jafrabad, Gokulpuri and Shiv Vihar, among others – before entering Loni in Ghaziabad, the intent was evident.
Among the places the Yatra halted was Crescent Public School, where Rahul and the others took a meal.
The people showed their appreciation with the huge crowds that turned up to witness the Yatra, and to praise Rahul for “possessing the courage to walk among us”.
Alongside the Yatra, the conversation centred around prospects of the Congress reviving itself, particularly in Delhi, where it now has zero seats in both the Lok Sabha and Assembly. The Congress too went out of its way to showcase its strength here, with makeshift stages bursting with local leaders and supporters every few hundred metres.
Jatin Anand reports
In her first address as part of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Tuesday showered praises on Rahul Gandhi.
Joining the Yatra as it entered Uttar Pradesh, the state she is in-charge of as Congress general secretary, Vadra hailed brother Rahul for everything from walking 3,000 km to “withstanding cold in a T-shirt” to “not being bought by Ambani and Adani”.
It was quite a family affair at a time when the Congress is trying to distance itself from dynastic charges and recently held elections where a non-Gandhi became party president after more than two decades. Rahul showed his appreciation with a tight hug of Vadra on stage.
Vadra was addressing a gathering at Loni in Ghaziabad, where the Bharat Jodo Yatra crossed into from Delhi on Tuesday, on its 109th day, having started from Kanyakumari in September and set to conclude in Srinagar, Kashmir, on January 30.
Read more here
In a surprise boost for the Congress, the chief priest of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple, Acharya Satyendra Das, has written a letter to Rahul Gandhi praising the objectives of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, and wishing him the best for it.
As the VHP regretted the move, adding that the priest should have taken into account the history of the Congress when it came to Lord Ram, Satyendra Das said political motives should not be read into the letter. “The blessings of Ram are for everyone who seeks them,” he told The Indian Express.
Das wrote the letter in response to a Congress invite to him for the Yatra, as it entered the state on Tuesday. The party has been sending such letters to prominent people in all states, including political leaders, and in UP, several saints were handed over invites. Das told the Congress that he wanted to write a letter in reply.
In the letter, Satyendra Das said he wanted to extend his best wishes to Rahul for the success of the Yatra, and added: “May you be healthy and have a long life. The work that you are doing for the betterment of the country is in the direction of sarvajan hitaya, sarvajan sukhaya (betterment and happiness of all)… Prabhu Ram Lalla ki kripa aapke upar bani rahe (May the blessings of Lord Ram Lalla always be with you).”
Maulshree Seth writes
Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, who joined Congress' Bharat Jodo Yatra in Delhi on Tuesday, said that she was "in solidarity with the idea of an India which celebrates unity in its diversity."
"Best wishes to Shri Rahul Gandhi as the Yatra moves ahead," she added.
A S Dulat, former Special Director of the Indian Intelligence Bureau & former Secretary of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) joined Bharat Jodo Yatra on Tuesday.
Dulat was also an advisor on Jammu and Kashmir in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government after his retirement.
Congress leader and Wayanad MP Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra resumed from Kashmere Gate in Delhi on January 3. The yatra had been on a nine-day hiatus since December 24 for Christmas and New Year. The yatra is scheduled to enter the BJP-governed state of Uttar Pradesh by the end of the day.
Sriniwasullu Kawali from Nellore in Andhra Pradesh has been in Delhi since December 28. Before starting to walk in the he said, “I set out from home on Indira Gandhi’s Jayanti (November 19) to be a part of the Yatra. I’m a staunch Congress supporter and believe in not only our leader (Rahul Gandhi) but also the message he is conveying — that we are neither divided by any religion nor language; and that we are all Indians. This is the message that everyone needs to understand and come together to bring Congress back to power in 2024.”
#Watch | Bharat Jodo Yatra Live here
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi visited Marghat Hanuman Mandir in Delhi ahead of resuming Bharat Jodo Yatra, reported ANI.
Shiv Sena Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi on Tuesday joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra after Rahul Gandhi sent an invite to her.
Meet Nitin Ganpat from Kolhapur, who has been camping in Delhi for the last ten days to participate in the Yatra.
He says, “The yatra is building the foundation for INC’s return to power in 2024, and I am a part of that foundation."
Watch Rahul Gandhi resume the Yatra from Delhi.
Watch Rahul Gandhi resuming the yatra from Kashmere Gate in delhi after nine-day break.
The flyover on Ring Road has been decked up with posters and glimpses from the Yatra so far. Heavy police and paramilitary force has been deployment at the spot.
Rahul Gandhi to arrive at Kashmere Gate soon. He will be seeking blessings at the Hanuman Mandir before beginning the Yatra, according to a local congress functionary.
Pictures from the starting point -- Hanuman Mandir, Kashmere Gate -- from where Bharat Jodo yatra will resume today. The yatra will proceed to north east Delhi taking the following route: Loha wala pull-Shastri park-Gandhi Nagar-Dharampur-Seelampur-SDM Court Chowk-Jaffrabad-Maujpur-Gokulapuri Chowk- Dayalpur Police station
Here is the yatra's schedule for the day.
How many times was a child called near Congress leader Rahul Gandhi? How many times did he walk ahead to talk with unknown persons during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in the national Capital last week? – These are some of the key instances given by Delhi Police Commissioner Sanjay Arora’s office to all DCPs before asking to submit their observations on security violations during the Delhi leg of the yatra, especially those by Gandhi and Congress party workers.
Rahul Gandhi enjoys Z-plus category security cover of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and at public interface events, the security unit makes one D-circle for the protectee. Security personnel never allow anyone to enter the D-circle. On December 28, Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah alleging significant security breaches in the Bharat Jodo Yatra in the national Capital and blamed the Delhi Police for failing “to maintain a perimeter around Gandhi”. Read more.
With the Uttar Pradesh leg of the Bharat Jodo Yatra set to start Tuesday, the Ghaziabad Police have announced a set of traffic diversions and restrictions. They are as follows:
All traffic will be barred between the Ghaziabad-Delhi border at Loni and the Ghaziabad-Baghpat border at Mandola. Know more here.
In an interaction with actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi while referring to China said that when the ‘economy doesn’t work and there is joblessness and internal fighting, then opponents can take advantage of the situation.’
Good morning. Welcome to today's Bharat Jodo Yatra blog. We bring to you all the latest updates from the yatra that will resume today after a 9-day Christmas and New Year break. Stay tuned.