AICC Jharkhand in-charge Avinash Pande on Wednesday launched the 1,950km long Jai Bharat Satyagraha Yatra, which will cover all 24 districts of Jharkhand in a span of 13 days.

The yatra, which began with a meeting at Lohardaga, will try to make people aware of the wrongdoings and the alleged dictatorial style of the Narendra Modi-led central government, Rahul Gandhi’s disqualification as a member of the Lok Sabha and the Centre’s silence over the Adani row.

“This yatra is to unite to save democracy in the country. It is to fight against the ‘mitrakaal’ (a term used by the Congress to indicate the bonhomie between Narendra Modi and industrialist Gautam Adani) policies run by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Amritkaal (75 years of Independence as observed by the Centre),” Pande said.

“Congress party ended the British Company Raj from this country by following the path of Satyagraha shown by the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and we are going to do the same to end the dictatorial rule,” the Congress leader from Maharashtra added.

He also underscored how four-time MP and former Congress president Rahul Gandhi was not allowed to speak inside Parliament.

“We have seen how Union ministers make irresponsible statements while tarnishing the dignity of their posts but they ended Rahul Gandhi’s Parliament membership. The only possible reason is that Rahul Gandhi put his hand on the sore spot of the Prime Minister by raising his voice against the Adani-Modi alliance,” Pande said.

“The Modi government has failed to answer a single question posed by the Congress. On the contrary, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s speech in the Rajya Sabha and Rahul Gandhi’s speech in the Lok Sabha were removed from Parliament records,” the Congress leader said.

Congress Jharkhand spokesperson Rajeev Ranjan Prasad said that the yatra would touch all districts in Jharkhand before culminating in a grand programme in Ranchi. The district-level programmes would be attended by district party office-bearers, local MLAs and MPsand state unit heads. Acontrol room has been set up at the state level to monitor the yatra daily and prepare a report.