Uttar Pradesh unit of the Congress party launched its ‘U.P. Jodo Yatra’ on Wednesday from the Shakumbhari Devi temple in Saharanpur. The Yatra covers the Western U.P. region, which is considered key to the grand old party’s revival in the State due to the favourable social coalition of Muslim-Dalit, once the Congress party’s core voter base and even in 2009 parliamentary election, when Congress showed signs of revival by winning 21 seats out of 80 in the State it succeeded in Moradabad, Bareilly, and Lakhimpur Kheri, the three districts out of 11, through which the Yatra passes and come second on three other seats.
In Moradabad, the Muslim constitutes roughly 47.12%, in Rampur 50.57%, Bijnor 43.04%, Saharanpur 41.95%, Muzaffarnagar 41.3%, Amroha 40.8%, and Bareilly roughly 35% of the total population.
Top State party leaders including U.P. unit chief Ajay Rai, senior MLA Aradhana Mishra ‘Mona’, former Union Minister Pradeep Jain Aditya, former MLA and prominent Muslim face Imran Masood were present on day one of the Yatra, while Deputy leader of Congress in Rajya Sabha Pramod Tiwari is slated to join the Yatra.
Top leadership of Congress including Priyanka Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi is also invited by the State unit to participate in the Yatra.
In the U.P., the politically most crucial State sending 80 Lok Sabha members, the Congress continuously failed to make inroads since the 1991 parliamentary elections, winning less than 12 seats in each of the last eight parliamentary elections apart from the high 2009 elections. In the 2014 and 2019 polls, the Congress failed to win any seat in Western U.P. The grand-old party which ruled the state for roughly four decades has been out of power in the U.P. since 1989.
Congress planned to hold more than 140 small meetings en route to the Yatra and scheduled to hold dialogue with wooden furniture manufacturers in Saharanpur; brass manufacturers in Moradabad; “zari zardozi” workers and bamboo craftsmen in Bareilly; sugarcane farmers in Muzaffarnagar and Bijnor; craftsmen in Rampur; cane farmers in Shahjahanpur and Lakhimpur Kheri.
The Yatra will travel 20 kilometres a day and spend two days in each district.
“The Yatra aimed at listening to the grievances of the farmers, artisans, traders and other working class of the region, who suffered exploitation at the hands of the BJP government and giving them a healing touch. At the same time, we will take a pledge to stand with them,” said Anil Yadav, General Secretary of U.P. Congress.
