Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra is set to join the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in her in-laws’ native town Moradabad on Saturday and will be part of it for the remainder of its Uttar Pradesh leg over the weekend, sources said on Thursday.
She was to participate in the yatra when it entered Uttar Pradesh in Chandauli but could not do so because of ill-health and subsequent hospitalisation, they said.
The Congress general secretary will join the yatra when it resumes from Moradabad on Saturday and will remain with the yatra during its leg in western Uttar Pradesh, the sources added.
Meanwhile, the Congress once again invited Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav to participate in the yatra in Agra, Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee spokesman Anshu Awasthi confirmed here on Thursday afternoon.
Awasthi said that UPCC president Ajay Rai along with UP coordinator of the yatra, PL Punia met former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav, and requested him to join the last leg of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in UP, especially after the two party had reached on an alliance for coming parliamentary elections.
Samajwadi Party spokesperson Rajendra Chaudhary confirmed that Akhilesh Yadav would join the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Agra on February 25.
The Congress and Samajwadi Party on Wednesday announced to contest the Lok Sabha elections together with the grand old national party contesting 17 seats and SP 63. The SP has given one seat to the Chandrashekhar Azad led party.
Earlier, Akhilesh did not join the yatra either in Amethi or Rae Bareli as promised by him. The SP chief asked Congress to first finalise an alliance with his party before he joined the yatra with Rahul.
The yatra will resume from Moradabad on the morning of February 24 and thereafter cover Sambhal, Aligarh, Hathras and Agra districts, culminating in Dholpur in Rajasthan on Sunday.
The Congress has said that the yatra would remain suspended from February 26 to March 1 to enable Rahul Gandhi to fulfill his long-standing commitment to deliver two special lectures at his alma mater Cambridge University in the UK on February 27 and February 28, and also to enable him to attend other important meetings in New Delhi.
The yatra will resume from Dholpur on March 2.
