When padayatras turn a political tool

As the crucial 2023 Assembly polls approach, the padayatra seems to have caught the fancy of all political parties with the Congress taking out the Mekedatu padayatra which however had to be aborted because of the Covid third wave. The JD(S) which had announced its ‘Jaladhare Yatra’ to press for implementation of irrigation projects, has also put it off due to the pandemic. Shyam Sundar Vattam examines the politics behind such padayatras and whether they really achieve the stated purpose.

There are many forms of protest and in the pre-independence period, the padayatra was one mode adopted by freedom fighters to show their anger against British rule. The Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi led the famous Dandi March against the imposition of tax on salt and since then, a number of padayatras have been taken out-some to safeguard the interests of the nation and others as a political tool to gain power. The padayatra has also dominated politics in southern states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka. Late Y.S. Rajashekara Reddy brought the Congress back to power by walking hundreds of miles through the length and breadth of the undivided Andhra Pradesh drawing enormous support. After his demise in a chopper crash, his son, Jaganmohan Reddy took out a similar padayatra after the Congress refused to make him the successor to his father’s legacy and the rest is history.

In Karnataka, the first padayatra in recent memory was the one taken out by Congress leader and former CM Siddaramaiah when the mining barons, the Reddy brothers openly challenged him to enter Ballari district when B.S. Yediyurappa was Chief Minister. Accepting the challenge, the Leader of Opposition who was in his 60s, set off on the padayatra to Ballari in the gruelling heat.

A big team of Congress leaders walked from Bengaluru to Ballari and it did enough damage to dismantle the strong fortress built by the Reddy brothers. A mammoth rally was held in Ballari, from which AICC President Sonia Gandhi had contested for the Lok Sabha and it was enough to change the fortunes of the Congress party.

The padayatra ousted the BJP from Ballari and G. Janardhan Reddy was sent to jail on charges of illegal mining. This historic march helped Siddaramaiah become CM in 2013 after the Assembly polls-a dream which did not materialise when he was in the Janata Dal under the shadow of HD Deve Gowda.

Now after over a decade, the Congress is back on the warpath and launched an ambitious 165 km long padayatra from Mekedatu to Bengaluru to urge the state government to construct a balancing reservoir at Mekedatu in Kanakapura taluk in the high voltage Ramanagar district. The yatra was subsequently temporarily suspended due to the spike in Corona cases across the state but it did enough to fire up the ambitions of KPCC President D.K.Shivakumar who led the yatra. Siddaramaiah too took part in this padayatra but had to stop twice due to age related problems.

Shivakumar completed five days of the padayatra accompanied by thousands of his supporters giving enough indications that it was his way of making a determined bid for the CM gaddi when the elections are due.

Not to be left behind, former CM and Janata Dal(Secular) leader, H.D. Kumaraswamy announced the Jaladhare yatra for completion of irrigation projects, which has now been postponed. Earlier he had taken out a padayatra from Navalgund in Dharwad district to Belagavi for the sake of the Kalasa Banduri project which was stopped enroute. The JD(S) State President H.K. Kumarawamy is planning to take out a padayatra from Sakleshpur to Bengaluru to highlight the menace of wild elephants.

With just a year left for the crucial Assembly polls, all political parties are harping on novel ideas to woo voters and the padayatra is one of them. In fact the Congress padayatra had raised the hackles of the JD(S) as it was supposed to pass through Vokkaliga community dominated JD(S) strongholds which have traditionally backed Deve Gowda’s party. It’s no surprise that the ruling BJP, realising the gameplan of the Congress to grab the JD(S) vote, is tacitly supporting the JD(S) in the fight against a common enemy. Ironically, in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, then coalition partners, Congress and JD(S) had fielded common candidates and had even undertaken joint campaigns against the BJP only to be washed away by the Modi Tsunami. Coming back to the politics of padayatras, is the latest one by DK Shivakumar meant to up pressure on the state government to implement the Mekedatu reservoir project or an attempt to catapult him to the frontline of Congress leaders aspiring for the CM post, Siddaramaiah and Mallikarjun Kharge included? The Mekedatu project was conceived way back in 1968 but the then (Congress) government did not do much to implement it. The party took five decades to come up wit