Vanity van yatras

This refers to “Raje’s Rath”( August 6). People of India have seen many yatras from the days when the former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N T Rama Rao went on Chaitanya Yatra after forming the Telugu Desam Party in a bid to oust the Congress. Unlike NTR who boarded the famous Chaitanya Ratham, a Cheverlot van with bare minimum facility (as he was not keen to put too much money on his untested political journey), the former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar went on a Padayatra from Kanyakumati to Kashmir covering a few kilometres every day. Since then, we have seen countless yatras (which can be rather called Kursi Yatras) by leaders from various parties with BJP being a leader here. Led by none other than L K Advani, their Ram Rath Yatra saw bloodshed in many parts of the country and culminated in the demolition of the Babri mosque. Rest, as they say is history. The saffron party was able to increase its numbers from a singledigit figure and touch the magic mark to rule the country, of course, under a different leader.

Whenever I read about yatras, I wonder why none of our leaders have ever taken out any Rozi Roti Yatra covering length and breath of India to check for themselves the conditions under which people voting for various parties live. Such yatras could have probably helped a few people get jobs and saved others from starving to death like what happened in Delhi recently. With electronic media in tow, what we see nowadays can be called a yatra in a vanity van to garner votes.

N Nagarajan Secunderabad