3 months ago
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In a veiled excavation astatine his detractors astatine a felicitation ceremonial for Congress workers who had participated successful his ongoing Statewide ‘Sadbhavna Yatra’, erstwhile Hisar MP Brijendra Singh said helium was grateful to those who had opposed him. “When the upwind blows from the front, it lifts you up. It’s due to the fact that of the absorption that our padayatra has gained truthful overmuch much traction,” quipped the 53-year-old bureaucrat-turned person amid applause.
Sporting a luxuriant, bushy beard – reminiscent of Congress person Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra – Mr. Singh drew parallels betwixt the 2 yatras, noting that archetypal disapproval had yet fixed mode to wide resonance. “People said each sorts of things astir my padayatra too, similar the Bharat Jodo Yatra,” helium said of his journey.
Currently successful its 4th phase, the padayatra began connected October 5 past twelvemonth and has passed done 48 of the 90 Assembly constituencies. The program is to screen each seats by April-end. Stroking his beard, Mr. Singh told The Hindu: “We person walked implicit 1,600 km. It is much than fractional of the full route.” Though the regular yatris alteration betwixt 80 and 120, the locals excessively articulation successful causing the numbers to swell, helium added.
Mr. Singh, who discontinue the BJP to articulation Congress days earlier the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, said the padayatra carried a connection against the “assault connected accepted brotherhood and camaraderie successful agrarian areas”. The BJP, helium alleged, resorted to divisive authorities to found itself successful the State aft it formed a authorities successful Haryana for the archetypal clip successful 2014. Despite a beardown question against the party in the 2024 Assembly election, the “divisive” authorities paid them electoral dividends, helium said, adding that “in hindsight, 1 tin accidental that 1 could consciousness it arsenic the predetermination approached too.”
‘Man with a vision’
Samiullah, 40, who walked for astir 20 km with Mr. Singh from Bisru to Punhana, said radical and the enactment workers expected him to get a “big responsibility” successful the State portion and were gravitating towards him. “He is educated and a sorted person. He thinks positively,” said Samiullah connected what drew him to Mr. Singh.
Ravinder Kumar, 60, said the Congress person was honorable similar his father. “He is friendly, polite and precise accessible,” helium said. “The connection of brotherhood that his padayatra carries is precise applicable successful Haryana today,” chimed successful Chaudhary Mohammad Ali, a nonmigratory of Nuh.
For galore of those belonging to Faridabad, helium is inactive the “DC Sahab”, having served arsenic the Deputy Commissioner of the territory successful the precocious 2000s during his 21-year bureaucratic career. “Being the descendant of [legendary husbandman leader-politician] Sir Chhotu Ram and a erstwhile bureaucrat, helium has the vision. He talks astir the farmers and the mediocre and takes everyone along,” said Congress idiosyncratic Krishan Kumar, a nonmigratory of Palwal’s Hathin.
‘Workers are jittery’
On his learnings from the padayatra, Mr. Singh said it had made him recognize that “the roots of the Congress are truly heavy successful Haryana, but the workers close present are precise jittery.” After 3 consecutive electoral losses, enactment workers were fed up and privation immoderate remedy, helium said. “Congress is simply a precise potent unit successful Haryana, lone if gets its location successful order,” said Mr. Singh, besides the vice chairperson of Congress’s overseas affairs cell.
On the idiosyncratic front, helium said the padayatra was the “most potent way” for him to enactment to remainder the conception that his household was confined to “a constituency”. Mr. Singh, lad of erstwhile Union Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender, became Hisar MP connected the BJP awesome conscionable a period aft quitting the IAS but mislaid his archetypal predetermination to the Haryana Assembly successful 2024 by a specified 32 votes from his household bastion Uchana in a multi-cornered contention with enactment rebels queering the pitch.
A salient Jat leader, Mr. Birender, considered adjacent to precocious Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, had discontinue the Congress successful 2014 owing to his differences with his relative and two-time CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda and joined the BJP.
Mr. Hooda and respective enactment leaders considered adjacent to him person maintained a region from the padayatra saying it was not a enactment programme. The enactment workers, office-bearers and adjacent legislators successful districts specified arsenic Yamuna Nagar, Rewari, Faridabad and Nuh, however, person supported the ft march.
Mr. Singh said “somewhere immoderate insecurities were trickled” by his padayatra – referring to “very unsavoury comments” coming from wrong the enactment – but refrained from naming anyone. After a creaseless modulation from bureaucracy to politics, the padayatra is helping recoup the Assembly predetermination loss. “I person learnt my lessons successful a way,” helium said.
