Congress President Sonia Gandhi joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which resumed its journey in Pandavapura in Karnataka's Mandya district on Thursday after a two-day Dasara break.
She joined the padayatra led by her son and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi for some time after it left Bellale village in Mandya district on Thursday morning. Several other party leaders including former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) President D K Shivakumar walked alongside within a security ring thrown around her.
Ms. Gandhi has joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra for the first time since it began on September 7 and wound its way through parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala before entering Karnataka on September 30.
The morale of the Congress party in poll-bound Karnataka, which has been on a high ever since the yatra entered the State, has received a fresh boost with the entry of Ms. Gandhi, who arrived in Mysuru on Tuesday and spent the last two days at a forest resort in Kabini when the Bharat Jodo Yatra was on a two-day break for Dasara festival.
The padayatris and party leaders assembled at Bellale village in Pandavapura early on Thursday morning and began the march with fluttering the party flags and gutsy sloganeering.
The Congress President has joined the march about two weeks before the Bharat Jodo Yatra's mammoth public rally scheduled to be held at Ballari, from where she had been elected to the Lok Sabha in 1999.
