Bharat Jodo Yatra not just physical endeavour but effort to rebuild 'broken collective conscience': Mallikarjun Kharge

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge. File Pic

On the first anniversary of the party's Kanyakumari to Kashmir Bharat Jodo Yatra, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Thursday said the foot march was not just a physical endeavour but a sincere effort to "rebuild our broken collective conscience".

Describing the Bharat Jodo Yatra as a people's movement, Mallikarjun Kharge said it continues to fight the menace of hate and hostility in society through a conversation.

"The Bharat Jodo Yatra is not just a physical endeavour, it is a sincere effort to rebuild our broken collective conscience. Our ingrained values of justice, liberty equality, and fraternity, for us, are supreme," Mallikarjun Kharge said in a statement posted on X.

"The Congress party is continuously reaching out to people in an endeavour to reclaim our Constitution and protect our Democracy," he said.

On this day in 2022, the Congress launched the yatra in Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, the southern tip of the country.

"The trend of manufacturing irrelevant headlines to divert attention from the real issues of people to hide the agenda of hate and division is a systemic attack on our collective conscience," Mallikarjun Kharge said.

He asserted that the yatra "seeks to bring real issues of economic inequalities, price rise, unemployment, social injustices, subversion of Constitution, centralisation of power, to the centre stage of people's imagination".

The Bharat Jodo Yatra is "a people's movement, unequalled in history", Kharge said.

"As the yatra completes one year today, on behalf of the Indian National Congress, I congratulate Rahul Gandhi, all Bharat Yatris and the lakhs of our citizens who walked and joined in this historic endeavour," he said.

Meanwhile, the Congress on Thursday said it was not a "Mann ki Baat" lecturing exercise for Rahul Gandhi but an opportunity to listen to "Janta ki Chinta" and it continues in different forms.

On the first anniversary of the launch of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, describing the yatra as a transformative event in Indian politics, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said it focused on "rising economic inequalities, increasing social polarisation and deepening political authoritarianism".

From Kanyakumari to Kashmir, the Bharat Jodo Yatra covered more than 4,000 kilometres and carried a message of unity in diversity, with lakhs of people from all walks of life, the Congress chief said.

During the course of the yatra, that culminated in Srinagar on January 30 this year, Gandhi addressed 12 public meetings, more than 100 street corner meetings and 13 press conferences. He had over 275 planned walking interactions and more than 100 sitting interactions.

(With inputs from PTI)