© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The eight-day, 225-km Haryana leg of the Bharat Jodo Yatra will be seen as a success by not just Rahul Gandhi. Haryana Congress strongman Bhupinder Singh Hooda will be as delighted, with the impressive show seen as demonstration of his immense organisational skills and mass following. As party leaders managed to set their differences aside to put up a united front, the BJP’s confidence regarding the Congress being enfeebled due to divisions and “lack of cadre” also took a beating.
Over and above, the Yatra’s Haryana leg had the fingerprints of Hooda – besides son Deepender, PCC chief and loyalist Udai Bhan, and other diehard Hooda followers – all over. This included planning of the route, ensuring that it covered the Muslim-dominated areas of Nuh and Mewat, as well as the constituencies of Chief Minister Mahohar Lal Khattar (Karnal) and Home Minister Anil Vij (Ambala); arranging night halts for Rahul Gandhi at Anaj mandis or villages to give the message of solidarity with farmers; mobilising crowds; and seeking permission from the state government and district administrations.
The Yatra – between December 21 and 23, and then January 6 to 10 – also stayed largely in constituencies currently held by the BJP.
For once, Hooda’s detractors Randeep Singh Surjewala (a Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan), former Haryana PCC president Kumari Selja and Tosham MLA Kiran Choudhry, fell in line behind him. Rahul did his bit by ensuring equal limelight in the Yatra for the warring leaders, with Selja, Surjewala and Choudhry all seen walking beside him, along with the Hooda father and son.
The newly appointed in-charge of the Congress for Haryana, Shaktisinh Gohil, Tuesday tweeted a picture of Hooda and Surjewala hugging each other – in further enforcement of the message that all was well. The photo was timed to the BJP’s latest criticism of factionalism within the Congress.
Prominent personalities such as former Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor (retd), the BKU’s Rakesh Tikait and international boxer Vijendra Singh dropped in.
While Rahul kept up his attack on the BJP and RSS in the course of his Yatra, invoking religion, farmer and MSME issues, inflation and unemployment, a lot of focus remained on his T-shirt. Having earlier said in Delhi that he did not need woollens as he, unlike others, “was not afraid of the cold”, in Haryana, he asserted that he would not don any till some girls he had met wearing torn clothes in Madhya Pradesh could afford sweaters as well.
On several occasions, youths greeted Rahul by removing their shirts.
On the BJP’s claim of the Congress lacking cadre, Rahul said at a press conference: “Who says the Congress has no cadre at the ground level in Haryana? The cadre is visible out on the roads. Thousands have been walking all these days. That is the cadre of the Congress party.”
The other message the Congress focused on was establishing that it was no longer the “inaccessible” party of past, and would remain among the people and work for their welfare. Hooda called the Yatra “a Jan Andolan”. “Rahulji interacted with farmers, women, unemployed youth, industrialists, small businessmen, panchayats… This Yatra will be considered as a historic event,” he said.
Senior Congress leader and former Palwal MLA Karan Dalal quipped that while many party leaders may have shed kilogrammes walking, the party itself “gained weight”.
Gohil, who tweeted the picture of Hooda and Surjewala hugging, said: “I was asked why we were doing Bharat Jodo Yatra in Haryana given the intense factionalism in the state. Now, everybody watched how they not only joined feet but also hearts together in this Yatra. Our PCC president Udai Bhan, former chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, our AICC general secretaries Randeep Surjewala, Kumari Selja, our Rajya Sabha MP Deepender Hooda, all our committees heads, all our MLAs, they worked as Congress party workers. They all worked as a family in this Mohabbat ki dukaan,” he said.
Gohil added: “Not just who will be our chief minister but also how will that CM be is our focus. That Rahulji has made clear in this Yatra.”
Not all were convinced about the show of bonhomie. A senior Congress leader said Hooda ensured that only his men were in the front and near Rahul, keeping out others. “In fact, when Rahul held an interaction at a hotel in Ambala Monday, Surjewala, Selja and working PCC president Shruti Choudhry were kept waiting outside. So was Shaktisinh Gohil. It was after he protested that the four were allowed in.”
According to the leader, “This was where the Hooda and Surjewala picture was taken by somebody and subsequently tweeted by Gohil. This is the state of affairs.”
Another senior Congress leader, also not willing to be named, said it was no surprise that the responsibility fell on Hooda. “It was basically the duty of the state PCC to make arrangements for the Yatra. The PCC chief is as such a loyalist of theirs (the Hoodas)… thus obviously they had to be in the forefront.”
