Rahul Gandhi sets off on Yatra 2.0 before LS polls, focus on Hindi heartland states, SC, ST belts

Barely a couple of months before the Lok Sabha elections and just over a month after the Congress was decimated in the Assembly elections in three heartland states, Rahul Gandhi will kickstart his Manipur to Mumbai Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Thoubal near Imphal on Sunday.

While the Congress said it was not a poll yatra, the list of the Lok Sabha constituencies Rahul’s Yatra 2.0 would pass through indicated that the party is heavily focusing on the Hindi regions.

Of about 100 Lok Sabha seats the Yatra would criss-cross, as per a tentative list The Indian Express has seen, as many as 58 are in the Hindi-speaking states such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar and Rajasthan. In UP alone, the Yatra would pass through 28 Lok Sabha segments, among them Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Varanasi constituency, Rae Bareli, Amethi, Allahabad, Phulpur and Lucknow.

The Yatra would largely avoid the strongholds of the key INDIA constituent Samajwadi Party (SP) – including Kannauj, Azamgarh, Etawah, Mainpuri and Firozabad even though it would still cross the SP bastions like Rampur, Sambhal and Badaun – as the Congress feels the Akhilesh Yadav-led party is strong enough to challenge the BJP in its turf.

The Yatra will spend the maximum number of days – 11 – in UP – the politically most-crucial state with 80 seats where the Congress has failed to make a mark in the last two Lok Sabha elections.

The Yatra will pass through 28 seats in UP – including Chandauli, Varanasi, Machhlishahr, Jaunpur, Phulpur, Allahabad, Bhadohi, Pratapgarh, Amethi, Rae Bareli, Lucknow, Mohanlalganj, Hardoi, Sitapur, Dhaurahra, Shahjahanpur, Aonla, Bareilly, Moradabad, Rampur, Sambal, Amroha, Aligarh, Badaun, Bulandshahr, Hathras and Agra.