Rahul Gandhi was scheduled to start a “long march” on Wednesday in an effort to reverse the Congress party’s apparent inexorable slow fall, imitating Indian freedom hero Mahatma Gandhi.
The Grand Old Party, which ruled for decades after India gained its independence from Britain in 1947, is now a discredited shell of its former self after being crushed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi (BJP).
Gandhi, who is not a descendant of the Mahatma but rather of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, was mocked by Modi during the last two elections as an out-of-touch, pampered princeling and playboy.
Gandhi worshipped at a monument in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, in the southern state, where his father Rajiv Gandhi was killed in 1991, just like his grandmother Indira had been seven years earlier.
After that, he traveled across India, crossing 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles) in 150 days, and finally arrived in occupied Kashmir.
It is unknown, though, if he will walk the entire distance.
He claimed that the purpose is to draw attention to Modi’s, 71, government’s chronic unemployment, skyrocketing inflation, and deepening polarisation between the majority of Hindus and religious minorities like Muslims.
Ahead of the massive march, Rahul addressed a gathering in New Delhi on Sunday.
He stated, “Narendra Modi and the BJP are destroying the country. I want to ask you if price increases or animosity helps the country.
When enmity is eliminated, the nation advances more quickly.
