JDU chief Lalan Singh to skip conclusion of Cong's Yatra in Srinagar

Janata Dal (United) president Lalan Singh on Thursday expressed his inability to attend the concluding event of the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra in Srinagar on January 30 and asked the Congress to take appropriate steps to unite the opposition.

In a letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Singh cited his scheduled engagement for a political programme in poll-bound Nagaland to skip the Yatra's conclusion.

Though the Congress has invited heads of several non-BJP parties to attend the event to finish the mega exercised aimed at rejuvenating its organisation in the run up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, it remains to be seen how many of them turn up.

Some regional party chiefs may send others to represent their organisation at a time when the opposition is itself divided over what shape any such alliance against the BJP should take and who should be spearheading it.

Singh said, "My party sincerely feels that the need of the hour is an unified opposition and expects that the Indian National Congress takes appropriate steps in this direction".

The JD(U) has in its past highlighted its pre-eminent leader and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's as prime ministerial candidature while without officially projecting him as its choice for the face of the opposition.

Singh, however, shared Kharge's sentiments against the BJP, saying there are "no two opinions that there is decline in democratic values in the country and that the Constitutional institutions that are supposed to ensure checks and balances on unrestrained executive power are being systematically destroyed".

The pace at which the country is fast transforming itself from an "electoral democracy to an electoral autocracy" is frightening, Singh said.

He termed the concluding event of the yatra as "historic" and wishes it success.

The march started from Kanyakumari on September 7 and entered Jammu and Kashmir via Punjab on Thursday last.

The marathon march will culminate with Gandhi unfurling the national flag at the party headquarters in Srinagar and addressing a grand rally at the Sher-e-Kashmir Cricket Stadium on January 30.