The opposition INDIA Block leaders gathered in Mumbai had nothing to do on Sunday the whole day except to be at the rally at the iconic Shivaji Park in the evening. In fact, there couldn’t have been a better off day for the INDIA Block. It was the day after the dates for the general elections 2024 were announced. Four weeks from now people will be voting and even Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be on tenterhook, despite the who-ha-ha and the brouhaha over the “400 paar '' rhetoric that Modi has been strumming at places in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

Election Campaigning started in earnest on Sunday and INDIA Block leaders jumped into the thick of convincing voters they should vote for INDIA Block parties and not fall for Modi’s "400 paar", which has been acting as some sort of hypnotism trick perfected by Modi. Everybody except Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav came to the Shivaji Park rally.

Akhilesh’s wife and Samajwadi Party MP Dimple Yadav gave a “bite”. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin did not play truant. And Tejashwi Yadav regaled much like his father Lalu Yadav used to. Tejashwi warned Prime Minister Narendra Modi to be wary of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who had left Tejashwi by the wayside and gone the BJP's way. It cannot be that the then Bihar Deputy Chief Minister has forgiven Nitish Kumar. But down Mumbai way, Nitish Kumar wasn’t news. In fact, Dharavi stole the thunder and the lightning when Rahul Gandhi compared what used to be Asia’s largest slum with Shenzhen in China and said that “give Dharavi its head” and the world will forget Shenzhen.

So, the culmination of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra was shaping up better than the entirety of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, even by the standards set by the inaugural south-north Bharat Jodo Yatra. The east-west Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra started from Manipur and after covering 6713 km, winding through 15 states, arrived in Mumbai. The earlier Bharat Jodo Yatra had started on September 7, 2022 from Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, and arrived in Srinagar after covering 4080 km, passing through 12 states.

The second was in reality more a bus yatra than a march on foot and Rahul’s t-shirt did not hog all the publicity. Thankfully, Rahul Gandhi did not forget to remind people in the second Yatra, too, that “I am not Rahul Gandhi, this person who you are seeing is not Rahul Gandhi. Uddhav Thackeray is also not Uddhav Thackeray.” The Wayanad MP said this at the Shivaji Park rally, asking Mumbaikars not to be confused, the "Narendra Modi you keep seeing is a mask”.

And the “mask” gets its directions/orders from “somebody above Modi”. It didn’t need an IQ of 140 to figure out who the Gandhi scion was alluding to? Rahul Gandhi had tough words for the Prime Minister, but overall they fit within the limits set by the Model Code of Conduct, which kicked in the minute elections were notified. Rahul Gandhi couldn’t have notified Prime Minister Modi of the impending tough elections the Bharatiya Janata Party faced at a more opportune time.

INDI-Alliance leaders at the Shivaji Park rally, other than Rahul Gandhi, Uddhav Thackeray and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, got only 5 minutes each to present their anti-Modi piece. Uddhav Thackeray spoke his in Marathi while Congress President Kharge presented his in Hindi and part of it in Marathi. Rahul Gandhi in his unique staccato manner put Prime Minister Narendra Modi's near future on notice.

What he said wasn’t a bit BJP-friendly; also, Rahul Gandhi said, he wasn’t fighting Narendra Modi nor was he fighting the BJP, but a “force” which had overwhelmed the leadership of the BJP and the Modi government. The largely disciplined audience understood, even those who resented the bad press that the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra got, one of which was that the “optics” couldn’t match that of the first Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Two, the second Yatra was more by bus than on foot. But what really set the first and second yatra apart was the number of celebrities and political leaders who walked with Rahul Gandhi during the first. From Kamal Haasan and Pooja Bhat to Amol Palekar and Raghuram Rajan. The Abdullah father-and-son duo also shared a spot with Rahul Gandhi. The Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra was bereft of celebrity participation. It couldn't be that the ED paid visits to the homes of the celebrities?

Rahul Gandhi made contact with all of India during the first and second Yatra was how Congress supporters put it. Rahul Gandhi’s brand equity went up several notches. Farooq Abdullah, Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti, Aaditya Thackeray, Priyanka Chaturvedi, Sanjay Raut, Supriya Sule, Sharad Pawar. Everybody appeared to be in awe of Rahul Gandhi at the Shivaji Park public meeting. It was as if Rahul Gandhi was INDI-Alliance’s chosen leader; perhaps, even the “PM face” of the INDIA Block, which was another indication that the “yatras together” brushed up Rahul Gandhi’s stock and transformed Rahul Gandhi lock, stock and barrel. (IPA Service)