With a few months left for the Lok Sabha polls, the Congress is now in preparation mode for it. The party is set to kickstart its campaign Thursday with a rally, called “Hain Tayyar Hum (We are ready)”, in Nagpur on the occasion of its 139th foundation day.
Nagpur houses the RSS headquarters and also Deekshabhoomi, the place where B R Ambedkar embraced Buddhism. There is also the Congress’s own relationship with the city, going back to before India’s Independence.Shubhangi Khapre and Vallabh Ozarkar write that it was at the Congress’s Nagpur Session held in December 1920 that the party under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership gave a clarion call for the launch of the non-cooperation movement against the British.
Addressing a press conference Wednesday, Maharashtra Congress chief Nana Patole said: “Whenever the country faced trouble, the Congress pitched in and a big change took place in the country. After the Emergency, (the then prime minister) Indira Gandhi held a public meeting in Nagpur and the Congress then won all the seats from Vidarbha. History will repeat in Nagpur and a big parivartan (change) will take place in the country.”
In another outreach initiative before the polls, the Congress announced Wednesday that Rahul Gandhi will embark on the
Bharat Jodo Yatra 2.0 – an East-to-West march called the “Bharat Nyay Yatra” – from Manipur to Mumbai starting January 14.
The venue of Thursday’s rally is located in Nagpur’s Dighori Naka area, which the Congress has dubbed “Bharat Jodo Ground” in a reference to Rahul’s Yatra.
