Congress Party to March For Months, Battling Modi’s Popularity

(Bloomberg) -- Rahul Gandhi, the scion of India’s Congress party, has kicked off a 3,500 kilometer-long (2,175 miles) march across the country to revive his party’s fortunes and challenge Prime Minister Narendra Modi in elections less than two years away.

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The five month-long “Unite India” journey will take Gandhi, 52, and thousands of his party workers across 12 states -- starting from India’s southern tip to Kashmir in the very north. It will highlight what they describe as the socially divisive agenda of Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party and draw attention to soaring inflation and joblessness ahead of the 2024 national elections.

The Congress party is struggling to reclaim lost ground after suffering its worst-ever defeat in the 2014 elections that brought Modi to power. Its seat count in parliament has dropped now to 52 from 206 when it won a second term in 2009. It hasn’t fared any better in local polls-- losing 39 of the 49 state elections since 2014.

“Almost all the paths for us have been blocked,” Gandhi said at a rally in New Delhi on Sunday. “The only way left is to go among people and tell the country’s truth to them.”

The party hopes the march, which Gandhi plans a grueling schedule of covering some 23 kilometers (14 miles) each day, will help it connect with voters. It has blamed Modi’s government for blocking it from holding protests and demonstrations.

“While our youngsters can’t earn, prices keep going up. So we are heading into bad times,” said Gandhi, while launching the march at Kanyakumari on Wednesday. “And it is very important that we bring the people of India together, make sure that we are united so that India is strong.”

Gandhi doesn’t hold any formal position within the party but is seen as the heir to India’s Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that’s dominated the Indian National Congress, once associated with India’s freedom movement. In turn the party has ruled the South Asian nation for more than five decades since independence from Britain in 1947.

A recent opinion survey showed nearly 53% of respondents continue to favor Modi as prime minister despite a choppy second term in office -- marked by a devastating second wave of Covid-19 infections, street protests over new farm laws that Modi was forced to roll back, and the exit of a key regional ally. In contrast, only 9% want to see Gandhi in the top job.

The Congress party -- which is also set to elect a new president next month -- has seen an exodus of senior leaders over the last few years. Gandhi’s nationwide march is also skipping the states of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, which head to polls by the end of the year.

“He seems more keen on optics than on substance,”said Rasheed Kidwai, a visiting fellow at the New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation and author of a biography on Gandhi’s mother Sonia Gandhi. “He badly needs electoral victory to take on Modi in 2024, but this foot march may not bring votes to his party.”

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