Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra: Where’s the bang for the buck for Congress?

Twenty out of 66 days which is 30 percent of the total duration of the yatra is being spent in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

With Rahul Gandhi embarking on the second leg of his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from January 14, the route plan from east to west of India suggests that the party is focussing on states where it has less representation and where Congress is weak.

Getting Basics Wrong

The way the yatra has been planned exudes a lack of political objective and may not yield dividends to the grand old party in general elections 2024.  However, party strategists feel the yatra would get good media coverage and help Rahul Gandhi be in the news, capturing airtime at a time when Ram Mandir inauguration will hog the limelight.

The yatra seems to have not taken the allies into confidence with JD(U) criticising Rahul for going ahead with a Congress Yatra instead of a INDIA bloc Yatra.

They were already bristling at Congress wasting three crucial months which could have been used to thrash out differences in seat sharing, etc because of its preoccupation with elections in five states.

At a time when the election is just three months away and the focus should be on campaigning, the second leg of the BJY is projecting a more social and less political angle to it.

Misplaced Focus On Northeast, Strongholds Of Allies

The Yatra is likely to cover 110 districts and 100 Lok Sabha seats in 66 days, culminating on March 20, 2024. The route planners have got it horribly wrong if Congress wants to gain political outcomes from this yatra.

Thirteen days (20 percent of yatra duration) are being spent in Northeastern states which send 21 MPs to Parliament, less than 4 percent of Lok Sabha strength.

The number of days spent in Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh which send four MPs to Lok Sabha is the same as the yatra’s time in Rajasthan – all of one day – which sends 25 MPs.

Twenty days out of 66 days which is 30 percent of the total duration of the yatra is being spent in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar where Congress is weak and is dependent on allies like Trinamool Congress, Samajwadi Party and the Janata Dal (United)-Rashtriya Janata Dal combine.

Unless Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav and Nitish Kumar/Lalu Yadav join the yatra it would not be able to create a buzz and reap political dividends in these states.

These three states do send 162 MPs to Lok Sabha (30 percent of total strength), however this time could have been used in states where Congress has maxed out like in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and needs to preserve the gains.

Neglect Of Congress’s Best Bets

While a lot of analysts highlight how BJP has maxed out in Hindi heartland, they tend to ignore the fact that out of the Congress tally of 52 seats in 2019, 23, nearly half come from these two states alone, where the party won nearly every seat it contested.

To keep this tally intact in these two states, the yatra would have helped especially in Kerala. The argument that Rahul contesting in Wayanad will be enough doesn’t wash. In 2019, Congress created a buzz in Kerala and Tamil Nadu of Rahul being the PM contender but after the measly tally in the 2019 and defeats in big North Indian states, voters could call the Wayanad bluff.

Meanwhile, party strategists could argue that the first leg of the yatra already covered the southern states, but that was more than a year away.

Effective election campaign strategy states that as the election dates come nearer parties should focus on their stronghold areas rather than the weaker ones.

The BJNY will spend eight days for 14 seats in Jharkhand, again too many days from the aspect of relative proportion of the state in total Lok Sabha tally.

Read | Congress yatra to hold dialogue with people on economic inequalities, caste census, unemployment: Kharge

In Maharashtra, where Congress has been able to form a decent enough alliance consisting of Uddhav Sena and the NCP faction of Sharad Pawar (of course, the strength of these two factions of the original outfits haven’t been tested electorally), the yatra is taking only five days. A good 48 seats are up for grabs here, more than thrice the total seats in Jharkhand.

For just 16 districts in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, 12 days will be spent, a tad slow by any standards. In both these states, Congress was the favourite to win the recent assembly polls but lost badly to BJP. And just one day in Rajasthan; has the party given up on the state?

The southern part of India, which is a relative stronghold of the Congress party, and required a big push before general elections, is not part of the route. The second leg is late and should have happened simultaneously with the recent state elections as it happened during the first leg simultaneously with Gujarat and Himachal.

Now is the time to focus on strongholds, run a joint campaign with allies, and leave the weaker areas to Congress’s INDIA bloc partners. Since it is a Rahul Gandhi event, a lot of party resources will be usurped by the yatra at a crucial time when cadre should have been involved in voter mobilisation.

The signs of another epic Congress misfire writ large?

Amitabh Tiwari is a former corporate and investment banker-turned political strategist and commentator. Twitter: @politicalbaaba. Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of this publication.