Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will kick-start the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra from Thoubal district near Imphal on Sunday, January 14. This second large-scale outreach program will begin in Manipur amid a few restrictions the state government imposes. The order issued by the office of Thoubal deputy commissioner specifies that the Yatra should not exceed an hour, and the number of participants should be a maximum of 3000.
The time limit on the event has been imposed due to the venue being beside and along the national highway, requiring traffic to be diverted to alternate routes for that period, as per the order. The Congress party initially planned to start the Yatra from Imphal Palace Ground. Still, it shifted to private ground in Thoubal after the BJP-led Manipur government restricted the number of participants to 1,000.
The approval for the Yatra also includes conditions prohibiting anti-national or communal slogans during the rally. The order emphasizes, "There shall be no anti-national or communal or any adverse slogans during the rally and the Yatra," and organizers should fully cooperate with state authorities. Permission for the Yatra will be cancelled if any situation arises "warranting such gathering to be disassembled to maintain peace, public order, and tranquillity in the area."
The Congress has stated that the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra is not an electoral one but is being organized as the government did not allow it to raise people's issues in Parliament. The initiative aims to re-establish the principles of justice, liberty, equality, and fraternity enshrined in the Constitution.
The Yatra will travel through 100 Lok Sabha segments in 15 states before culminating in Mumbai on March 20 or 21. Besides Manipur, the Yatra will cover four northeastern states — Nagaland (257 km in two days), Arunachal Pradesh (55 km in one day), Meghalaya (five km in one day), and Assam (833 km in eight days). The Yatra will then move to West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra.