Rahul Gandhi has said the mainstream media’s conduct was one of the reasons that compelled the Congress to initiate a direct conversation with the people of India through the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which on Wednesday took its first detour from the scheduled route to spend a day in Himachal Pradesh.

While the Congress leader has for some time been criticising the media for acting like a propaganda tool of the Narendra Modi government, he sharpened his attack on Wednesday and said there was little space for people’s real concerns and that this was a problem of attitude, not ignorance. Other institutions, including the judiciary, were working under pressure from the government, making the Opposition’s task much more difficult, he added.

Addressing a public meeting in Kangra, Rahul said: “Have you seen a campaign against rising unemployment in the media? Did you see a screaming headline declaring that the job crisis had become dangerous? We have seen during the walk from Kanyakumari to Himachal Pradesh the fear and hopelessness in the hearts of the youth. Thousands of young boys we talked to, who told us that they are working as labourers despite holding professional degrees.”

Rahul continued: “Everybody knows the deficiencies of the Angiveer scheme but did you see the media discussing them? The farmers understood the threat posed by the three black laws and they fought against them. We raise the issue of prices but the media ignores it. There is fear in society; hate is spread everywhere; communities are pitted against each other. But the media will show Narendra Modi’s face, cricketers and Bollywood actors. You can’t raise these issues in Parliament; the mike is turned off and the camera is turned away. There was no option left other than to embark upon this journey.”

The Yatra was not originally scheduled to travel to Himachal but the route was changed on the request of the Congress government elected in the state last month. The Yatra returned to Punjab at night and will enter Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday after a public meeting in Pathankot.

Rahul hailed chief minister Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu who in turn iterated his resolve to fulfil all the promises made before the election. While the old pension scheme has been restored, committees have been constituted to draw up schemes to implement promises such as the grant of Rs 1,500 per month to every woman.

The Congress, which used its record of delivery on the promises made in the manifesto in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to win over the people of Himachal, will have to fulfil its promises in Himachal, which include providing cooking gas cylinders at Rs 500, immediately to win the trust of voters in poll-bound Karnataka.

The Congress has promised Rs 2,000 to every woman every month in Karnataka — a state that is critical in its revival strategy. This will work in Karnataka, where elections are due in May, only if Himachal implements the scheme before that.