‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ to raise voice of common people: Cong

Ahead of its “Bharat Jodo Yatra” slated to begin on September 7 covering a distance of 3,570 km from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, the Congress on Monday said the Yatra, which envisages a direct dialogue with the people of India on the serious issues confronting the country, would raise the voice of the common people.
Addressing press conference along with NPCC president K. Therie at Congress Bhavan, here on Monday, AICC secretary Ranajit Mukherjee informed that the “Bharat Jodo yatra” was initiated owing to non-fulfilment of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promises in 2014 for a dream of prosperity to all Indians. He said that Modi instead has delivered a nightmare of price rise, unemployment, social tension and compromised institutions over the past eight years.
Claiming that the economy of the country was in tatters, Mukherjee said the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer. He said that common people were badly hurt by relentless price rise and record unemployment. He said “Kisans and Khet mazdoors” were buried under debt and the assets of the country built up over the past 70 years were being handed over to Modii’s billionaire crony-capitalist friends. He said that the country was also witnessing destruction of all properties constructed by successive governments.
Mukherjee alleged that society was being divided on the basis of caste, religion, region, language, food and dress. He claimed that every day a new conspiracy was hatched to make Indians fight one another.
According to Mukherjee, the United Christian Forum reported that there were 207 instances of violence/crime against Christians in the society. Further, he claimed that recently China took control of 2,000 sq. km of India’s land in Ladakh, but the ruling party continued to divide the society, serving the enemies’ cause.
AICC secretary said that individual rights were trampled upon, the voice of the people was suppressed and the Constitutional rights were being crushed.
He said that most of the media houses were unable to report freely as they were forced to carry the voice of the government. Mukherjee said that systematic efforts were made to subvert the Constitution that protects every Indian.
He said the country was also witnessing dismantling of institutions like judiciary, election commission, the central investigation agencies.
He said state non-BJP governments were destabilized either by money or muscle power using central government institutions like CBI or ED. However, he said that BJP-ruled government states were protected even if they were wrong by the same institutions.
Mukherjee said that total misuse of investigation agencies by the Centre was leading to a breakdown of the crust in the democracy by the people of each state, adding that this led to a sense of insecurity amongst people, especially women.
To address all the issues confronting the country, he said the AICC led by Rahul Gandhi would be undertaking the Bharat Jodo Yatra covering 12 states and 2 union territories over the next six months. He said that the initiative will witness mass connect exercise attempt to directly talk to lakhs of people, discuss and how to take the voices to the “deaf government”.
Asserting that it was a non-partisan journey, he invited the leaders of civil society organisations and others to join the Bharat Jodo Yatra. He also said that one can join the Yatra digitally.
Mukherjee added that one could follow the website www.bharatjodoyatra.in, give a missed call to 999998000, or on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or Instagram.