Kottayam: Twelve Congress workers, who walked the full length of Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra, arrived in Puthuppally on Thursday to campaign for UDF candidate Chandy Oommen.
"They will be camping in the constituency for the rest of the days and leading the squads visiting houses," said Mahila Congress state secretary Sheeba Ramachandran, who is one of Bharat Jodo team members.
The aim is to increase the winning margin of the UDF candidate, she said. People's unhappiness with the LDF government's corruption and ineptness will resonate in the election, she said. "The bigger the margin, the louder will be the message of people's protest against the LDF governance," said Ramachandran.
The Bharat Jodo team who have arrived in Puthuppally are Venugopal P V, Yusuf Shaji, Varun Alapatt, Aneesh Katakkada, Bijesh, Fathima VP of Palakkad, Shibin Mathen, K T Benny, Vivek Bhatnagar from Rajasthan, Arif Muhammed from Coimbatore. They walked 4,080 km from Kanyakumari to Kashmir over 150 days from September 7, 2022, to January 30, 2023.
The Congress has given them leadership roles in the party affairs. Sheeba said she has a supervisory role in Rajasthan assembly election. She had done the same in the Karnataka election and Thrikkakara byelection.
She has been in Puthuppally from the day the byelection was declared. "We formed squads of the Mahila Congress and have been visiting houses. We are not just seeking votes. We are explaining what the governments in the state and the Centre are up to," she said.
There is a sympathy wave in the constituency because of Oommen Chandy's demise, she said. "But homemakers are very vocal against the government's policies too," she said.
Fathima Thirthala, who is also a State Secretary of the Mahila Congress, said they were able to convince the people about the corruption of the LDF government. "The womenfolk in the families of CPM comrades agreed to vote for Chandy Oommen," she claimed.
Both the women said they joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra with the dream of reviving the Congress. "I left my elderly mother and teenage daughter and joined the Yatra. My toenails broke, and I got a fever. But I did not rest for a day. I took tablets and walked," said Sheeba Ramachandran said. "We were all enthusiastic because we had a dream to revive the Congress," she said.
