New Delhi: After nationwide protests over the ED, price rise and unemployment issues charged up party workers, the Congress hopes to keep the momentum going by capitalizing on the Aug 9-14 mini-yatras across the country to mark 75 years of Independence.
Accordingly, the various state units have chalked out plans and made suitable arrangements to carry out the mini-yatras, dubbed “Azadi ki Gaurav Yatra”, which will cover around 75 km across all districts under their jurisdiction.
As part of the initiative, which was planned at the Chintan Shivir from May 13-15 in Rajasthan’s Udaipur, where Rahul Gandhi had flagged the need for the grand old party to get into the agitational mode and go back to the people to counter the ruling BJP.
During the Azadi Gaurav yatra, Congress workers and leaders will celebrate the political milestone, highlight the grand old party’s role in the freedom struggle and use the foot marches as public outreach events.
“We will tell the people about the role the Congress played in the country’s freedom struggle. You can’t separate Congress and the freedom struggle. We will tell them about the work the party did since Independence. In contrast, we will also tell people that the Centre has done nothing over the past eight years except for carrying forward the previous UPA government’s schemes,” AICC secretary in charge of organization Qazi Mohammed Nizamuddin told ETV Bharat.
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Party insiders said that the June and July nationwide protest over ED summons for party chief Sonia Gandhi and former chief Rahul Gandhis and the August 5 agitation over price rise and unemployment issues have galvanized the party workers and the leaders alike. The recent protests, they acknowledged, have been qualitatively different from the agitations that have been staged by the party units across the country over various public issues.
Qazi, a former Uttarakhand MLA, said that though the Congress had been protesting over public issues in the states over the past years, the grand old party was going into the Azadi Gaurav Yatra with a “renewed energy and resolve.”
“The recent protests have certainly charged up the party. We have to prepare for the future challenges,” he said. AICC secretary in charge of Chhattisgarh and Lok Sabha member Saptagiri Ulaka, who attended a recent state working committee meeting over the mini-yatra, said, “We discussed the broad plans for the yatra routes and deployment of our resources for the event.”
Assam unit chief Bhupen Kumar Bora, who led price rise protests in the north-eastern state on August 5, said, “I will participate in the yatras at Gohpur, Laluk, Borhanpur, Golaghat, Dhekiajuli, Mangaldoi, Tangla and Guwahati during the next week.” In Karnataka’s Chikkaballapur, state unit chief DK Shiv Kumar and CLP leader K Siddaramaiah took part in a bike rally ahead of the mini-yatra to mobilize local support.
