Rahul Gandhi to sleep in container for 150 days of ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’

Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra begins on September 7, 2022. (Illustration by Suneesh K.)

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will launch the party's 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' from Kanyakumari today. For the next 150 days, as he covers the 3,570 km journey from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, Gandhi will stay and sleep in a container.

According to news agency ANI, Congress has denied that Rahul Gandhi, 52, will put up in hotels during the nation-wide ‘yatra’. Instead, containers have been prepared to accommodate the Congress MP and other party leaders who will accompany him on the yatra.

Gandhi will lead Congress workers and leaders on a walk across 12 states and two union territories. At night, they will sleep in containers that have been prepared with beds, toilets and air conditioners.

“About 60 such containers have been prepared and sent to Kanyakumari where a village has been set up in which all these containers have been placed,” sources told ANI. “The containers will be parked in a new place every day in the shape of a village for night rest.

“Full-time Yatris who stay with Rahul Gandhi will eat together and stay close,” the sources said, adding that Gandhi wanted to avoid “glitz and glamour” during the march. Instead, he is looking at the yatra as a way to connect with the common man on ground.

Before the launch of Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi took part in a prayer meeting at his father Rajiv Gandhi’s memorial in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.

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. pic.twitter.com/ODTmwirBHR

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 7, 2022

(With inputs from PTI)