Walk to Victory: How Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra paved way for Congress win in Karnataka

As the vote-counting process progressed on 13 May, the Congress seemed poised to win the fiercely fought Karnataka assembly election with at least 136 of the 224 constituencies. The party attributes the stunning victory to the state’s alleged corruption, opposition to the BJP’s “divisive politics,” its leader Rahul Gandhi, and especially to his Bharat Jodo Yatra. The grand old party released a 49-second video clip from the yatra as soon as counting for the Karnataka election began at 8 am on Saturday. They wrote, “I’m invincible. I’m so confident, Yeah, I’m unstoppable today.”

I'm invincible

I'm so confident

Yeah, I'm unstoppable today 🔥 pic.twitter.com/WCfUqpNoIl

— Congress (@INCIndia) May 13, 2023

The 145-day yatra, led by now-disqualified MP Rahul Gandhi, travelling a distance of about 4,000 kilometres from Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu to Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, arrived in election-bound Karnataka on 30 September 2022. Rahul Gandhi, a former president of the Congress, had many opportunities to interact with villagers during the yatra. He considered this march to be one of his “most beautiful and profound experiences.” The yatra travelled through 75 districts in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab. The yatra was put to the test for the first time in Karnataka. Catch all the live updates from the Karnataka Assembly results  HERE Congress tally in areas visited by Rahul Gandhi during Bharat Jodo Yatra During the yatra, Gandhi and other Congress leaders visited Chamarajanagar, Mysore, Mandya, Tumkur, Chitradurga, Bellary, and Raichur up to 23 October. As per data by Network18, in Chamarajanagar district, the grand old party is in the lead in three of the four constituencies, while in Mysore, out of 11 seats, eight are now being held by Congress. [caption id=“attachment_12591692” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with party leader DK Shivakumar during the party’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, in Chitradurga district, Karnataka. PTI[/caption] Five of the seven seats in Mandya are being held by the national party, and they have also secured six of the 11 seats up for election in Tumkur. Six seats are available in Chitradurga, and five of them seats currently held by the Congress, while they won all five seats in Bellary. There are seven seats in Raichur, and the Congress has won four of them or is currently in the lead. At first, senior members of the Congress, including Gandhi, the general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh among others, insisted that the Bharat Jodo Yatra had nothing to do with any elections, whether they were parliamentary or assembly-based. They did, however, changed their stance as soon as the Congress won the Himachal Pradesh assembly election. The party included BJY among the reasons for the victory. The historic win of the BJP and the Congress’ setback in Gujarat was ignored by the party leaders. Rahul Gandhi spent a day campaigning in Gujarat and spoke at two electoral rallies, one each in Rajkot and Surat. He did not travel to Himachal Pradesh even once. [caption id=“attachment_12591712” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Congress leader Rahul Gandhi with party leader D.K. Shivakumar during the party’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, in Chitradurga district, Karnataka. PTI[/caption] If the Congress leaders are to be believed, the effect of the Bharat Jodo Yatra is quite visible. The influence of the march on foot in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Telangana, which hold elections later this year, is still to be determined. Also read: Sunil Kanugolu, pollster ‘as elusive as Bagheera’ who scripted Congress' win Congress’s historic win in Karnataka With a lead of 136 seats, the Congress looks poised to surpass the 120 seats Siddaramaiah, the party’s previous chief minister, had predicted. Chief Minister and BJP candidate Basavaraj Bommai has conceded defeat after learning that his party is only ahead in the 244-member legislature by more than 60 seats. Sharing a report card on Twitter, Jairam Ramesh wrote that the yatra had a “direct impact” on the intense election. He shared a table comparing his party’s performance in 20 assembly seats through which the Yatra passed.

While this is the direct impact of the #BharatJodoYatra in Karnataka, the intangible impact was uniting the party, reviving the cadre and shaping the narrative for the Karnataka elections. It was during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, from the many conversations @RahulGandhi had with the… pic.twitter.com/r1JOWMoei3

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) May 13, 2023

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, who hails from Karnataka, termed it the “victory” of “Janata Janardhana", as people have voted “furiously" against BJP’s “bad administration" in the state. He said all the newly elected Congress legislators have been asked to reach Bengaluru by Saturday evening and the due process of government formation will be followed. The visits of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and BJP leader JP Nadda, according to senior Congress politician and former chief minister Siddaramaiah, had little effect on Karnataka voters. He claimed that the victory is a springboard for the Lok Sabha elections the next year and urged the opposition to fight together with Rahul Gandhi as the PM candidate. In response to the Assembly election results, his colleague DK Shivakumar, who, like Siddaramaiah, is rumoured to harbour chief ministerial ambitions, sobbed and praised the Gandhi family for placing their trust in him to run the state. [caption id=“attachment_12591702” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during the party’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’. PTI[/caption] Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, while attributing the victory to Bharat Jodo Yatra, wrote in Hindi that roughly translates, “The atmosphere that was visible in Karnataka during Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra is clearly visible in the election results in Karnataka today.” He added, “Karnataka has chosen the politics of development by rejecting communal politics. This will be repeated in the upcoming Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana assembly elections as well.”

श्री राहुल गांधी की भारत जोड़ो यात्रा के दौरान कर्नाटक में जो माहौल दिखा था आज उसी का नतीजा कर्नाटक के चुनाव परिणाम में स्पष्ट दिख रहा है। यूपीए चेयरपर्सन श्रीमती सोनिया गांधी, कांग्रेस अध्यक्ष श्री मल्लिकार्जुन खड़गे, श्री राहुल गांधी एवं श्रीमती प्रियंका गांधी के नेतृत्व में…

— Ashok Gehlot (@ashokgehlot51) May 13, 2023

Also read: Karnataka Results: Shivakumar or Siddaramaiah? Who will be Congress’ CM pick? Congress’ resort-politics As early polls in the state began to favour the Congress, there are reports that the party would be relocating their MLAs into resorts. According to Indian Express, the party has booked rooms at Bengaluru’s Shangri La Hotel and intended to set up camp there if the limit of 130 seats was exceeded. While the second strategy is to relocate their MLAs to the nearby state of Tamil Nadu and lodge them there at a resort in Mahabalipuram in order to be secure. Congress turned to politics after Rizwan Arshad, the party’s representative for Shivajinagar, raised concern over the BJP using horsetrading. According to him, the Congress party is sure that it would win the Karnataka Assembly elections and form an absolute majority administration. However, the BJP, which is currently in power, is hatching plans to buy MLAs. Political analysts monitoring the state’s happenings claimed that Congress was being careful since they didn’t want the 2018 Karnataka Assembly elections to end up the same way. To form the government at the time, the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) had forged an alliance. The Congress-JD(S) lost 17 of their MLAs, who moved to the BJP and resigned from the Assembly after spending the prior months locked up in a resort in Mumbai, and the coalition collapsed a year later. Also read: As Congress crosses majority mark in Karnataka, BJP has some reason to cheer in UP. Here’s why Congress and its promises to Karnataka If elected to power in 2023, Congress pledged to implement five important pre-election promises, which include 200 units of free power to all households (Gruha Jyoti), Rs 2,000 monthly assistance to the woman head of every family (Gruha Lakshmi), 10 kg of rice free to every member of a BPL household (Anna Bhagya), Rs 3,000 every month for unemployed graduate youth and Rs 1,500 for unemployed diploma holders (both in the age group of 18-25) for two years (Yuva Nidhi), and free travel for women in public transport buses (Shakti), according to News18. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.