SRIPERUMBUDUR, India: Emulating Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday started his “lengthy march” searching for to halt the reputedly inexorable gradual decline of his once-mighty Congress birthday party. The Grand Outdated Celebration, which ruled for many years after India’s 1947 independence from Britain, is a shadow of its former self, discredited and overwhelmed below the electoral juggernaut of High Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP).
The BJP thrashed Congress on the remaining two elections, with Modi deriding Gandhi – descended now not from the Mahatma however from India’s first high minister Jawaharlal Nehru – as an out-of-touch pampered princeling and playboy. Earlier than atmosphere off at the trek Gandhi prayed at a monument in Sriperumbudur within the southern state of Tamil Nadu the place in 1991 his father Rajiv Gandhi used to be assassinated-like his grandmother Indira seven years previous.
“I misplaced my father to the politics of hate and department. I can now not lose my liked nation to it too,” Gandhi, 52, mentioned on Twitter. He then headed to the southernmost tip of India, prior to traversing the country, protecting 3,500 km throughout 150 days and finishing in Kashmir – even though it used to be unclear if he’ll in truth stroll the entire means.
The purpose, he mentioned, is to spotlight rampant unemployment, hovering inflation and rising polarization between majority Hindus and non secular minorities like Muslims below Modi, 71. “I need to ask you whether or not worth rises or hatred strengthens the rustic… Narendra Modi and the BJP are weakening the rustic,” Rahul informed a rally in New Delhi on Sunday forward of the mega march. “The Congress birthday party, alternatively, unites the rustic. We erase hatred and when hatred is erased, the rustic strikes quicker.”
Mahatma Gandhi famously trekked some 380 km in 1930 to protest a salt tariff imposed through British rulers, in a seminal second within the independence fight. However Rahul, dubbed an “empty go well with” in leaked 2005 US diplomatic cables, is noticed as a reluctant chief in spite of being the great-grandson, grandson and son of 3 previous premiers of the sector’s greatest democracy. Gandhi surrender as birthday party president after the 2019 election debacle and used to be changed on an intervening time foundation through his mom Sonia Gandhi, 75, widow of Rajiv.
If he returns as president, which stays unclear, he faces an enormous fight to restore the birthday party, in energy in simply two out of 28 states and in coalition in 4 others. Analysts say Congress lacks Modi’s commonplace contact and is lacking a counter-narrative to the BJP’s politics which is infused with a heavy dose of “Hindutva” – an ideology that believes in making India an unique Hindu state.
The march “isn’t a gimmick. Rahul Gandhi sincerely believes in spiritual unity. However the other folks don’t seem to be . So, it’ll fail,” mentioned political analyst Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Junior. “Rahul and Congress must paintings laborious at the floor, to find out the issues individuals are dealing with in numerous portions of the rustic,” he informed AFP. “(The folks) want somebody to voice their dissatisfaction.” – AFP