With the Punjab leg of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra scheduled to kick off next week, the faction-riddled unit of the Congress is hoping to use the event to showcase a unified team in a state where it was almost decimated in last year’s assembly elections.
The yatra will enter the state on January 10. Speaking exclusively with News 18.com about the preparations and the Congress party’s plans, leader of opposition in the assembly Partap Singh Bajwa said, “The message is loud and clear; every party leader will be joining the yatra and walk with Rahul Gandhi for the number of days that he is going to move around in Punjab."
He said that the party is united, and every leader knows that nobody is bigger than the party. “The leader who had this feeling that he was bigger than the party was Captain Amarinder Singh. Now he is out and every party leader now knows that their prominence is because of the party," said Bajwa.
Bajwa said that every Punjab Congress leader was looking forward to the rally to demonstrate that they were united, mature, and were working under a visionary leadership so as to reclaim the trust of the people.
Bajwa said that the people of the state were already experiencing a government and a leader who was politically immature and did not have the vision to run a state. “Despite all the flaws that they have, the people of the state have the option to vote Congress as a party and its leaders have to realise that if they have to project their maturity, their vision of governance, then projecting a united front of the leadership would be the only way," said Bajwa.
He said that former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi has already been in the yatra in other parts of the country and he would be in Punjab as well. Former Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) chief Navjot Singh Sidhu, unfortunately, would not be able to participate; otherwise, all senior leaders and Congress party workers, and people at large would be part of the nine-day yatra, said Bajwa.
It will enter the state from the Shambhu border on January 10 and the party leaders will stay at Fatehgarh Sahib. The yatra will start around 6 am on January 11 after paying obeisance at Fatehgarh Sahib Gurdwara. It will pass through Khanna, Doraha, Sahnewal, Ludhiana, Phillaur, Goraya, Phagwara, Jalandhar, Bhogpur, Urmat Tanda, Dasuya, and Mukerian before entering Jammu through the Pathankot border on January 19. January 13 will be a rest day.
“The party is planning to hold a mega show on day one, January 11, and a rally at Pathankot on January 19," said Bajwa.
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