The Congress Party's Quest for Relevance

The Congress Party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra has spent more than 120 days traveling the length of India from the southern city of Kanniyakumari to the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir.

After traveling more than 3,500 kilometers, the march formally ended on January 30 in Srinagar. 

The yatra has grabbed headlines and riled up Congress supporters, but the question remains—what does it actually mean for the future of the Congress Party? 

To talk about the yatra’s legacy, Milan is joined on the show this week by Dipankar Ghose, deputy national editor of the Hindustan Times and three-time winner of the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award. Dipankar covered the yatra when it traveled through Rajasthan in late December, and he and Milan discuss the yatra’s impact on the Congress Party’s fortunes, Rahul Gandhi’s image, and the party’s “vision” problem. Plus, the two discuss the BJP’s reaction to the yatra and what comes next for India’s struggling principal opposition party.

 

Dipankar Ghose, “Counting milestones: A day in the life of the Bharat Jodo Yatra,” Hindustan Times, December 16, 2022.Dipankar Ghose, “Congress political crisis: The parallels in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh,” Hindustan Times, September 26, 2022.“G20, State Elections, and the Future of the Congress Party (with Sadanand Dhume and Tanvi Madan),” Grand Tamasha, December 14, 2022.