A long march forward or last goodbye? Rahul Gandhi walks length of India to revive Congress party

The 150-day march will cover more than 3,500km

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi began an epic 150-day march on Wednesday seeking to “unite the country”, in what many analysts see as a last-gasp attempt to reinvigorate his Congress Party ahead of general elections due in 2024.

The march comes as the grand old party is struggling to keep itself afloat after a slew of election defeats in successive state polls, as well as the 2014 and 2019 general elections.

The Congress Party, which governed India for most of the seven decades prior to the BJP’s victory in 2014, is also grappling with a leadership crisis and has seen a series of desertions in recent months.

Mr Gandhi, who is the great-grandson of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and a scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family – often referred to as India’s first political family – started the march from the southern state of Tamil Nadu by paying tribute to his father and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Mr Gandhi conducted a prayer meeting at his father’s memorial in Sriperumbudur near Chennai on Wednesday morning.

Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated in a suicide bombing in Sriperumbudur on 21 May 1991.

In a statement on Twitter, Mr Gandhi said: “I lost my father to the politics of hate and division. I will not lose my beloved country to it too.

“Love will conquer hate. Hope will defeat fear. Together, we will overcome.”

The 150-day foot march called the Bharat Jodo Yatra (Unite India March) will cover 3,570km across 12 states and two union territories.

Beginning at the country’s southern tip Kanyakumari, it will end in Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir.

Mr Gandhi launched the march accompanied by Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin, as well as the Congress chief ministers of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

While Mr Gandhi formally launched the march in Kanyakumari on Wednesday, it will effectively begin on Thursday morning when he will be joined by several other leaders and begin walking.

According to Congress member of parliament and former minister Jairam Ramesh, the march will move in two batches, one from 7am to 10.30am and the other from 3.30pm to 6.30pm. On average, around 22-23km will be covered every day, he added.

In addition, there will also be simultaneous small Bharat Jodo Yatras in states including Assam, Tripura, Bihar, Odisha, Sikkim, West Bengal and Nagaland.

While Mr Gandhi has said that the march is like a Tapasya (meditation) for him as he attempts to unite the country, he has faced a backlash from prime minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

On Wednesday, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, from the BJP, lashed out at Mr Gandhi’s march and said: “In 1947, Congress had divided India into Pakistan and then later, Bangladesh.

“If Rahul Gandhi has regret over partition then there’s no use of Bharat Jodo. Try to integrate Pakistan and Bangladesh. India is already intact. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, from Silchar to Saurashtra, India is integrated.”

The BJP has also accused the Congress of launching the march to “save” the Gandhi family.

“Essentially, it is a family-saving campaign. The family’s and the party’s political expanse has been shrinking while they face corruption charges,” said BJP member of parliament and former minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

“This is not about unifying the country but trying to establish him [Rahul] again as a leader. I would like to know how many times he will be launched and relaunched?”

The Congress has insisted that the march is to unite the country against the atmosphere of hate in the country fuelled by the BJP government.

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot said at a press conference on Wednesday that there was a need to use the slogan Bharat Jodo since an atmosphere had been created in the country, for the first time since independence, of hate, tension and violence.

While the party has denied that the march has anything to do with the upcoming general polls in 2024, it has said that it is the outfit’s largest ever Jan Sampark programme (People’s Connect programme) to raise awareness about various issues including inflation, price rise and unemployment.

Mr Ramesh said that the march is a “transformational moment for Indian politics and it is a decisive moment for the rejuvenation of the party”.

The party is also set to conduct presidential elections next month to decide who will succeed Mr Gandhi’s mother, longtime chairperson Sonia Gandhi, to lead the Congress Party.

In a statement, Ms Gandhi said that the walkathon will be a “landmark occasion for Congress” and added that she is “confident” that the party will be rejuvenated.