Today in Politics: Amid INDIA bloc churn, Rahul Gandhi kicks off Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Manipur

To revitalise the Congress’s base on the ground and reach out to people before the crucial Lok Sabha elections just two months away, top party leader Rahul Gandhi is launching his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Thoubal in Manipur Sunday.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge as well as other senior party leaders will be present to flag off the Yatra. The location of Manipur is important as the state has been roiled by ethnic violence since May last year. The Congress has repeatedly hit out at the BJP-led government in Manipur as well as at the Centre for not being able to curb the clashes between the Meitei and Kuki communities in the state.

This Yatra, coming a year after Rahul’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, will be key for the Congress as it attempts to set a narrative to take on the might of the Narendra Modi-led BJP. It is set to traverse 6,713 km, and will be undertaken in buses and also partly on foot. The Yatra will cover 110 districts, 100 Lok Sabha seats and 337 Assembly segments in 67 days, before concluding in Mumbai on March 20 or 21.

But the big question remains: Can the Yatra pay electoral dividends to the Congress in the Lok Sabha polls?

Manoj CG writes that while the Congress has said it was not an electoral Yatra but an “ideological Yatra”, the list of the nearly 100 Lok Sabha constituencies that Rahul will pass through indicates that the party is heavily focusing on the Hindi heartland. Last month, the party was routed in three Assembly polls — Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh — in this region.

The grand old party has also extended invitations to its INDIA alliance partners to join the Yatra when it passes through their strongholds. The Yatra will also be tracked closely in these states to gauge the understanding