Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Ajay Rai, on Wednesday, lashed out at the Bharatiya Janata Party for its anti-people policies and claimed that the public would overthrow the Narendra Modi government in the parliamentary elections next year.

Addressing a gathering at Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Chowk in Saharanpur soon after kicking off UP Jodo Yatra, Rai said that there was no common man’s government in Uttar Pradesh or at the Centre.

“The BJP government closes its ears to the problems of the farmers, it is not able to give the right price to the sugarcane farmers, BJP gives tickets to rapists in elections, continuously increases the prices of petrol and cooking gas and there are no opportunities for employment,” he said.

Rai said that taking inspiration from Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, the UP Jodo Yatra was started to make the people aware of how the double-engine government was cheating the public through fake propaganda by spending huge public money.

He asked the people to throw out the BJP government in the coming parliamentary election and get rid of inflation, unemployment, lawlessness and other ills.

Earlier, Rai started the UP Jodo Yatra from Gangoh in Saharanpur after worshiping the famous Siddhapeeth Shakumbhari Devi on Wednesday morning.

Meanwhile, Congress state spokesman Anshu Awasthi said that the yatra received immense public support on the very first day, and senior Congress leaders, Congress workers and thousands of common people participated in it. He said that the yatra was about connecting the hearts of the people against the BJP’s ideology of hate.

Besides Rai, Congress Legislature Party leader Aradhana Mishra Mona, former UPCC president Brijlal Khabri and other senior leaders participated in the yatra.

It may be mentioned that starting from the Shakumbhari Devi temple in Saharanpur, the 20-day yatra will cover 11 districts and 16 Lok Sabha constituencies. It will pass through the Muslim-dominated areas of Rohilkhand region. It is seen as the party’s outreach towards the Muslim community. The Lok Sabha constituencies in Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Bijnor, Amroha, Moradabad, Rampur and Bareilly have 35 per cent to 40 per cent Muslims voters whose votes are decisive in deciding the fate of a candidate.

The Congress has planned to reach out to farmers, youths, women, traders, religious leaders, craftsmen during the yatra. Party leaders and workers will hold dialogue with wooden furniture manufacturers in Saharanpur, sugarcane farmers in Muzaffarnagar and Bijnor, brass manufacturers in Moradabad, zari zardozi workers and bamboo craftsmen in Bareilly; craftsmen in Rampur; cane farmers in Shahjahanpur and Lakhimpur; and prominent religious leaders in various districts.  The 16 Lok Sabha constituencies that the yatra will cover were once strongholds of the Congress.

In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had bagged 21 seats in Uttar Pradesh, including Bareilly, Kheri, Dhaurhara and Moradabad, that will fall in the route of the yatra. Though the party lost the seats in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections, it is now working to make a comeback in the state politics with the support of its traditional support base –Muslims, Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Dalits. The yatra is a route for the party to send a message to its constituency and to regain its support base.