India election: Can Gandhi's march rally voters against BJP?

With Indian elections looming large, Rahul Gandhi of the Indian National Congress has started a months-long trip from the east to the west of the country, dubbed the "Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra," or Unite India Justice March.

This is not a new strategy for Gandhi. He set off on a similar journey in September 2022, walking 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from India's southernmost tip of Kanyakumari to Srinagar in the northernmost region of Kashmir.

The 2022 march took five months. Gandhi's party said it was directed against what they called "hate" and "divisive politics" from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist ruling coalition.

Now, the scion of India's most famous political dynasty is traveling the country's width from Manipur in the east to Maharashtra in the west.

This time, the chosen route is even longer — 6,700 kilometers — but Gandhi will also use a bus in addition to walking.

The move comes at the start of a crucial election year in India.

The country will go to the polls from April to May to choose its next prime minister as a 26-party opposition coalition takes on Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been in power for almost a decade.

March against the rule of 'select few'

The Congress party says the march aims to rally Indian citizens but is not limited merely to electioneering. 

"If you see its route, it's spending a considerable amount of time in the northeast where the corresponding number of seats in Lok Sabha (lower house of the Indian parliament) is quite limited," the Congress party spokesperson, Gaurav Gogoi, told DW.

"If it was done with an electoral mindset, then we would have looked at states where there are a maximum number of seats and would have focused on that."

The opposition party representative accused the BJP of trying to "subjugate" and disempower its people, adding that the march serves as a reminder to the elites that India will not be ruled by "a select few."

"It is more about galvanizing people who are afraid that five more years of PM Modi would spell doom for Indian constitutional values and would perpetuate the inequality that has increased between the rich and poor," Gogoi said.

Will Congress go at it alone?

Some political observers point out that the Indian National Congress has yet to reveal its broader election strategy this spring.

For example, it is unclear how it will cooperate with other opposition parties within the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) formed several months ago.

The united front was created to tackle the ruling BJP with the understanding that the National Congress, as the largest party within the alliance, would agree to share power with its smaller partners.

"There was a kind of a unilateral decision that was made after the latest INDIA alliance meeting to embark on this Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra," author and political columnist Sugata Srinivasaraju told DW.

"I don't really know if they are very clear on how they should go about fighting the elections — whether they should fight alone as the Congress party or they should fight in alliance with other parties by conceding a lot more seats," he added.

Other opposition parties expect Congress to steer clear of the Indian states they can control.

But coordinating in this way would mean a smaller vote share and a smaller "national imprint" for Gandhi's party, according to the columnist.

"They are pursuing a line where they want to remain independent, contest as many seats as possible and look like the only national alternative to the BJP," said Srinivasaraju.

"Congress as a brand has that kind of reckoning across India. They will be more focused on preserving that rather than giving in to all kinds of demands from the alliance partners, and in pursuance of that strategy, they have gone into the second part of the Bharat Jodo Yatra."

Economics 'always trumped by culture or emotion'

The Indian National Congress faces an uphill battle against the more popular BJP, especially after losing three state elections in India's heartland in December.

The ruling party's response to the march has been largely dismissive.

"I don't know what the Congress is up to. I don't know if we can even call it a strategy," BJP national spokesperson Shazia Ilmi told DW.

"The Yatra might be good for Rahul Gandhi's personal fitness, but I don't know about the political fitness of either the Congress party or of the overall alliance," he added.

Separately, political columnist Srinivasaraju claims there is a certain vagueness surrounding the latest Gandhi march in terms of its purpose and messaging.

"It is a great idea to be in touch with the masses, to be in live contact with them, but the messaging has to be far more direct and has to lead them into an electoral warmup," he said.

"Congress should have had a cultural narrative by now because they have an economic narrative that is all about reason and rationale, but there is an emotional aspect to every election, and Modi plays on that all the time," he added.

"Congress has to have cultural answers to the questions the BJP has been throwing at them. Regarding elections, economics is always trumped by culture or emotion."

A previous version of this article described Rahul Gandhi as the head of the Indian National Congress party. Gandhi had previously served as the party leader but is no longer in this position. This has now been corrected. We apologize for the error.

Edited by: Darko Janjevic