Summary:
New Delhi, Oct 2 (PTI) It is raining yatras this political season.
With all the latest technology at the disposal of the political parties and the advent of social media, many are going back to the good old formula of mass contact through a yatra (march).
While Rahul Gandhi, along with several other Congress leaders, embarked on a 3,570-km Kanyakumari-to-Kashmir Bharat Jodo Yatra last month, two more yatras began on Sunday -- BJD"s Jan Sampark Padayatra, led by Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, and poll strategist Prashant Kishor"s 3,500-km padayatra (foot march) within Bihar from the Gandhi Ashram in West Champaran.
Patnaik launched the mass contact programme on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti near the Lingaraj temple in Bhubaneswar, calling upon the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) leaders and workers to work in tandem with everyone for the development of Odisha.
Kishor"s march is being seen as a precursor to his re-entry into politics.
Kishor and his supporters will attempt to reach every panchayat and block in Bihar during the yatra, which is likely to take anywhere between 12 and 15 months to complete.
Kishor started the march from the Bhitiharwa Gandhi Ashram, from where Mahatma Gandhi had launched his first Satyagraha movement in 1917.
As the poll strategist and his followers embarked on the "padayatra", they were greeted by people along the route.
The Congress"s Bharat Jodo Yatra, which entered its 25th day on Sunday, has passed through Tamil Nadu and Kerala and entered Karnataka.
The yatra is being billed as the Congress"s biggest mass contact programme since independence and a "turning point" in the country"s political history.
The Congress has said it is a "transformational moment" for Indian politics and a "decisive moment" for the party"s rejuvenation.
The "yatra bandwagon" is not new in politics.
There have been several such events along with their hits and misses in terms of the impact.
In 1983, former prime minister Chandra Shekhar"s Bharat Yatra saw him undertake a foot march from Kanyakumari.
Monikers such as the "marathon man" were given to the Janata Party leader when his yatra, which was launched on January 6, 1983, reached New Delhi six months later.
Chandra Shekhar"s stature and the traction to the yatra kept rising as he passed village after village to connect with people.
Though observers regard Chandra Shekhar"s foot march as a largely successful event, dramatic political developments such as then prime minister Indira Gandhi"s assassination diluted its impact in the 1984 general election, which was swept by the Congress.
In 1985, the Sandesh Yatra was announced by then prime minister and Congress president Rajiv Gandhi at the AICC plenary session in Mumbai.