After achieving a milestone of 1,000 kms of Bharath Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi is all set to finish his Karnataka leg. The culmination of this leg was the hugely successful Bellari rally attended by all the biggies of the party including the two chief ministers – Ashok Gehlot and Bhupesh Bhagel.
While Rahul will now head to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana before entering Maharashtra, the Karnataka leg was quite successful for the grand old party in terms of traction, eyeballs, and media attention. And one man will heave a sigh of relief – KPCC president D.K. Shivakumar!
An out of turn and an unexpected notice from the enforcement directorate in the middle of the yatra had unsettled him as he had rushed to Delhi for a couple of days, however, he accompanied Rahul for the larger part of the yatra.
The yatra which traversed through Mysore, Mandya, Tumkur, Chitradurga, Davanagere, Hospet, and then Bellari got the desired effect as lakhs of people joined the entourage. Sources in the Congress told The Daily Guardian Review that for Shivakuamar as Pradesh president it was a big challenge. “Being with Rahul and organizing a flawless yatra was a daunting task. We all know the kind of resources DKS can mobilize given his organizational skills and to carry out a contingent of thousands of people along 550 kms was a different scale altogether. Every leader in each of the constituencies had to be taken into confidence. Programmes en route, meeting people from different walks of life, organizing interactive sessions like the one with teachers, farmers, students, traders, and skilled youth along with the daily exhaustion of walking 25 km will take a toll on anyone for that matter. DKS carefully planned and delegated the work in sync with the AICC which had to approve the plan. It’s a logistical nightmare,’’ he said.
While this was the yatra part, the politics of it was an entirely different ball game. With elections just months away, the yatra had a lot of political significance too and the hottest topic all through was who led the race to get nominated as Congress’s nominee for the CM face – D.K. Shivakumar or Siddaramaiah. And as expected it did surface when one of the journalists asked the question as to who the choice was. While Rahul played it safe saying there were many capable leaders in the party, his videos with former chief minister Siddaramaiah and D.K. Shivakumar were a testimony to the fact that these two were front runners. Another picture that went viral was that of Rahul Gandhi making these two leaders hold each other’s hands and walk in the yatra.
The Bellari rally was a fitting finale for the Karnataka yatra of Rahul and one the highlights were D.K. Shivakuamar’s speech where he said: “This yatra is not to make Rahul Gandhi the prime minister, this yatra is not to make Maliikarjun Kharge the chief minister, this yatra is not to make Siddaramaiah the chief minister, this yatra is not to make D.K. Shivakumar the chief minister, but to unite the people of India who are getting polarized because of the BJP. By putting his name in the same space as Siddaramaiah and Kharge, DKS has upped his game and postured himself that he is no less a leader than these two.
