Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh on Saturday said the party’s Bengal unit would set out on a statewide march on the lines of the Bharat Jodo Yatra led by Rahul Gandhi.

“The national Bharat Jodo Yatra is marching vertically across India, from south to north, Kanyakumari to Kashmir. States such as Bengal can’t be logistically a part of this route. This is why such states will have separate Yatras within the state,” Ramesh said at a news conference held at the Bengal Congress headquarters in Calcutta.

The AICC has tasked state Congress leaders with drawing up a route for the Bengal march and decide on details at the earliest, for which leaders such as Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Pradip Bhattacharya will meet on September 20.

“It will be called the Bharat Jodo Yatra, West Bengal, and will begin in the next three to four months,” said Ramesh.

He said the state-specific Yatras were part of the original plan, while a source said the positive response generated by the Yatra in Tamil Nadu and Kerala had encouraged them to embark on these state-specific marches.

Rahul launched the national march at Kanyakumari on September 7. The Yatra is set to cover around 3500km and 12 states in 150 days. On Friday, it entered Alapuzzha district in Kerala.

Though the main march won’t enter Bengal, Ramesh said 100 Congress supporters from the state would participate in it.

The Congress does not have any MLA in Bengal and is often seen as a dying force in the state. Ramesh urged people not to write off the Congress and compared it with an elephant that walks slowly but treads on the right path.

He said the march had little to do with the 2024 general polls and was acting as oxygen or booster dose for his party.

Dig at Trinamul

Ramesh said there could be no Opposition unity in the country without the Congress, as it had to be at the “pivot” or “fulcrum” of unity.

“Some Opposition parties are calling for unity without the Congress to weaken us and to backstab us. Interestingly, these parties have the name Congress attached to their names,” Ramesh said.