Following Akhilesh Yadav’s statement that there has been no invitation for a yatra, the SP leader, Congress, attempts to contain the damage

LUCKNOW: The Congress announced on Sunday that the schedule for Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in the state will be finalized in a day or two and then shared with the INDIA bloc member parties. This came a day after Samajwadi Party head Akhilesh Yadav claimed he had not received an invitation for the yatra.

According to Jairam Ramesh, general secretary of the Congress, “their participation would strengthen the alliance” in his article on X.
Reporters questioned Akhilesh on Saturday about if he would join Rahul’s yatra, to which he said, “Many big events take place, but we don’t get an invite.”
Ramesh wrote on X on Sunday, tagging a news video that included Akhilesh’s comment. He also said that the yatra’s exact itinerary and schedule in Uttar Pradesh were being finalized and will be available in a few days.

While the Congress has been under fire from other members of the INDIA group over the yatra—TMC president Mamata Banerjee, for example, avoided it while it was going through Bengal—its seat-sharing negotiations with the SP in UP have not gone well so far.

While the SP has also released a list of its candidates for 16 seats, including those seats that the grand old party is eyeing like Farrukhabad and Kheri, Akhilesh has unilaterally proclaimed 11 seats for the Congress.
The two parties’ pre-poll coalition discussions for the MP and Rajasthan elections have previously failed to come to fruition. SP fielded candidates for 69 MP seats, hurting Congress’s chances in a number of these seats.
Currently, Rahul’s yatra is taking place in Jharkhand, and on Friday, freshly elected chief minister Champai Soren took part in it.