How Congress plans to revamp party organisation through Nyay Yatra

Kuldip Pandit is a member of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), the student wing of the Congress, from Morena district of Madhya Pradesh’s Chambal division.

On Thursday (January 18), day five of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra (BJNY), he was on a mission mode registering youngsters to be Nyay Yoddhas through a miss-call campaign at Puthinadi in Assam’s Jorhat district.

Pandit has travelled over 2,000 km to Manipur to take part in the yatra kickstarted by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi last Sunday (January 14) from the strife-torn northeastern state.

The NSUI functionary will be part of the Congress caravan that will travel from east to west covering a distance of 6,713 km passing through 85 districts in 15 states to culminate in Maharashtra after a 66-day long track. The route will cover about 100 Lok Sabha constituencies and 340 assembly segments.

Countering BJP agenda

Many dedicated Congress workers such as Kuldip are partaking in the expedition the grand-old party has undertaken as part of its attempt to “counter the RSS-BJP combine ideologically.”

“This is an ideological yatra of a political party,” AICC general secretary Jairam Ramesh declared on the eve of the launch of the ‘Voyage for Justice’ to underscore the campaign’s avowed detachment from electoral politics.

Beyond the ideological messaging, the BJNY is also about revamping and rejuvenating the party organisation, which is facing an existential crisis in many of the states through which the yatra is passing.

Nyay Yoddhas

The Nyay Yoddha (justice warrior) enrollment drive is one such initiative. The drive is part of the Bharat Jodo Leadership programme, the Youth Congress has designed to create a volunteer pool for the party’s 2024 Lok Sabha campaign.

The responsibilities of the ‘yoddhas’ enshrined in the programme brochure include, brainstorm, strategise and implement the 2024 Lok Sabha election campaign; conduct political intelligence reporting for more than 10 lakh polling booths; dissemination of the party’s message to every individual; combating misinformation, fake news, divisive and hate-driven agendas; assisting party and its leaders in executing responsibilities and initiatives.

Apart from anyone affiliated with the Congress, the programme is open to supporters of the INDIA alliance and professionals with or without experience in political campaigns. The ‘yoddhas’ will help the party in campaign and field operations, fundraising, digital communication and media, analytics and technology and so on.

Kuldip claimed to have already enrolled around 150 volunteers in the areas through which Wayanad MP’s cavalcade hurtled by in the first five days.

Cashing in on craze

A paper strip autographed by RahulGandhi containing a QR code and a cell number (989-180-2024) is also being circulated as a parallel outreach drive christened, “Find My Photo”. The scheme is for the selfie enthusiasts to upload their memories of the yatra on the BJNY website.

To cash in on the craze for selfies, the Congress has launched a no-cost special ticket for those who wish to board the bus and click a selfie with RaGa. “These schemes have been designed to expand the party’s reach among the people taking advantage of the cross-country yatra for which thousands of party foot soldiers have been deployed on the ground. So far, the response has been overwhelming,” Assam Pradesh Congress chief Bhupen Kumar Borah told The Federal.

“The mobilisation of workers and the outreach drives will come in handy as we go into elections in a few months. Moreover, for young party leaders and apparatus like me the programme is also a huge learning experience as we get to learn a lot working alongside senior and experienced leaders from the AICC,” said Sedevilie Angami, a young secretary of the Nagaland Pradesh Congress.

Angami has been attached to the AICC communication team that has been overseeing the northeast leg of the yatra barring Assam.

Managing roadshow

The roadshow is managed by a milieu of teams, mostly drafted from the All India Professional Congress and AICC research and monitoring team, under the overall supervision of Rahul Gandhi’s core team comprising Jairam Ramesh, KB Byju and Amitabh Dubey.

“Managing a programme of this magnitude is never easy. It requires thorough professionalism. It’s Rahul Gandhi’s idea to draw mostly professionals and members of the research team to chalk out plans for the yatra and get them implemented with the help of the local operation team,” a Congress leader from the communication team said, adding lots of research has gone into finalising the route.

For instance, Manipur has been earmarked for the launch of the yatra for the obvious reason of being the most vivid symbol of the failure of the BJP governments both at the Centre and the state.

Planning route

The route also touched upon areas dominated by all three major ethnic groups of the state—Meiteis, Kukis and Nagas. The inclusion of the twin villages of Chuchuyimpang and Chuchuyimlang in Gandhi’s Nagaland itinerary further manifested the thought process that went behind charting the route.

The scenic Chuchuyimpang village in the Mokokchiung district was the recipient of Nirmal Gram Puraskar during the Congress-led UPA regime in 2012. Village Council chairman Temsumoa Imsong, who had received the award on behalf of the village, was present at the media briefing where Ramesh lampooned the Narendra Modi government for repackaging and renaming the UPA government’s Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan as Swachh Bharat Mission.

The village further boasts of the state’s oldest college, the Fazl Ali College, established in 1959. Chuchuyimlang, an offshoot of Chuchuyimpang, has a historic significance for the Congress and also for the state in general.

A 23-year-old Gandhian named Natwar Thakkar established a Gandhi Ashram in this village to spread the message of non-violence in the insurgency-ravaged Nagaland in 1955. During the visit to the village, Rahul Gandhi had an emotional meeting with the late Gandhian's nonagenarian wife, Lentina Ao Thakkar.

Temple row

The Congress leader had included in his Assam itinerary a visit to Bordowa satra, the Vaishnavite monastery in Nagaon district on January 22, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to preside over the inauguration of Ram temple at Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.

Bordowa is the birthplace of Srimanta Sankardev, the 15th-century social reformer and Vaishnav saint credited for promoting inclusive culture in Assam.

The visit was, however, called off as Gandhi was not granted permission to visit the Satra in the morning as the state’s BJP government felt that the programme would clash with the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

During the first leg of the Assam tour, the Congress leader visited Auniati Satra on Majuli island, the epicentre of Vaishnavism and Satriya culture.

While drawing the route map, the emphasis was given on the social, cultural and political significance of the place, the Congress leader went on to add.

Hybrid journey

Unlike the first edition of the yatra which was a foot march, this time the Congress leader has embarked on a hybrid journey — traversing mostly on a customised 'Mohabbat ki Dukaan' bus (TS09GF8055), ostensibly sent by the party’s unit in Telangana, where the Congress rode to a victory in December last year.

The high-tech bus is fitted with a hydraulic elevator to take the Congress leader on the roof of the vehicle to address public gatherings.

It also has an eight-seater conference room for Gandhi to interact on the go with civil society representatives, social influencers and ordinary people.

The Congress leader interacted with a group of intellectuals at Sekmai in Manipur to discuss the prevailing situation in the state.

Holding dialogue

In Nagaland, a Naga Hoho (an apex body of Naga tribes) delegation called on him at Khuzama village campsite and urged the Congress leader to raise in parliament the issue of non-implementation of the Framework Agreement signed by the Narendra Modi government with the Naga militant outfit, the NSCN (IM), in 2015.

A group of environmental activists, intellectuals and affected people from the northern bank of Brahmaputra in Assam met the Congress leader to convey the ecological destruction caused by the multiple dam projects on the river cleared by the BJP government allegedly without proper environmental impact assessment.

Similar meetings are lined up throughout the journey to underline local grievances and problems to incorporate them with the yatra’s larger thematic goal of securing social, economic and political justice.

Ideological battle

The meetings are facilitated by Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, an umbrella body of civil society groups. Abhiyan’s national coordinator Yogendra Yadav and a few other members are travelling with Gandhi on the bus.

“The yatra’s aim of securing justice would only be successful if local-level injustices are articulated to connect with the abstract notion of justice,” Yadav told The Federal pointing out that the notion of injustices varies from state to state.

Essentially, the BJNY is as much about revamping and rejuvenating organisation as it is an ideological battle.