After beginning of nearly two weeks of two political yatras — Suraj Sankalp Yatra of BJP leader Vasundhara Raje and Sandesh Yatra of Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, parallels are being drawn between the two. Political observers opined that the first leg of Raje’s yatra has outmatched the yatra of her rival in terms of response, crowd and warmth.
There is a vast difference between the two yatras, aimed to connect the people ahead of the Assembly elections. The response to Raje’s yatra is spontaneous, whereas the Congress leaders are struggling hard to bring the crowd at the public meetings of their leader.
The Suraj Sankalp Yatra is entirely a BJP show of strength, whereas Gehlot’s Sandesh Yatra is semi-Government and the party organisation is playing second fiddle to it, sources say.
Raje’s charismatic personality could be witnessed during her yatra, whereas Gehlot’s monotonous style of addressing the meetings and repetition of achievements of his Government, virtually failed to impress the crowd. This impression is gathered by this correspondent after covering parts of the two yatras at different points.
Gehlot’s yatra is traditional one. He would address the meetings, meet local leaders and officials to get the feedback. On the other hand, a high-tech team of Raje is using social media to take the yatra to those who could not witness it otherwise.
All the three sites on Raje, yatra and the Rajasthan BJP are being updated on hourly basis giving minute to minute account of the yatra. Two control rooms, one at State party headquarters and other at Raje’s residence, are working round-the-clock to coordinate and make last minute changes to get the maximum political mileage out of it.
There is daily media briefing at State BJP office by the senior party leaders.
Though Gehlot’s supporters maintained that the entire party machinery is involved in the yatra, from a close look it appears this was more or less the show of Gehlot, who is virtually handling every thing — from chalking out details to venue of the meetings, list of leaders who would be on dais, speakers and media interactions — personally.
A large number of women turned up at Raje’s yatra. There were occasions, when she got down from the rath to dance with tribal women to give a colour to her yatra. She has made it a point to visit all the religious places en route. At one point when she was told the rath could not go to the temple, she got down from it and sat behind the bike of a party workers as pillion rider to reach the place.
Raje’s yatra, which started on April 4, is a non-stop road show, whereas the Sandesh Yatra, which started from March 30, is in parts. Raje’s yatra on Sunday entered into its 11th days whereas Gehlot’s yatra has completed only six days that too in three parts.
Gehlot is not missing any opportunity to announce new schemes, sanctions or inauguration schemes to send the message that his Government was keen to fulfil all its promises his party had made in 2003 Assembly elections.
Of late, Gehlot has sharpened his attack on Raje. Commenting on her dancing with women and pillion riding, Gehlot at one meeting sarcastically said this kind of tamasha and nautanki would not give vote to her party. Raje is also not legging behind in attacking Gehlot and his Government.
“During the past four-and-half years, the Gehlot Government is making only promises and had failed to deliver goods. Unki Sandesh Yatra, ab shok yatra ban gayi hai (his Sandesh Yatra has turned into a condolence yatra now),” she commented in one of the meetings. During the 13th day of the first leg of her nearly four-month-long yatra, Raje would complete 1,300-km journey covering all the seven districts of tribal-dominated Udaipur division. On April 16, the last day of this leg of her yatra, a big meeting would be held at Udaipur.
Six-day-long Sandesh Yatra of Gehlot has so far covered parts of Bikaner, Shekhawati and Dundhad region of Jaipur.