A cross-country march led by Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi reached the capital New Delhi on Saturday, hoping to regain some of the popularity it has lost to the ruling Hindu nationalist party.
More than 1,000 people joined Gandhi’s march against “hate and division”, which aims to reverse the fortunes of the Congress party after it was destroyed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 elections.
The show, which has received a better-than-expected public response, will take a nine-day break in Delhi before starting its final leg on January 3 towards Srinagar in the northernmost Himalayan region of Kashmir.
Gandhi’s mother, former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, party president Priyanka Gandhi and her husband Robert Vadra joined Saturday’s march.
The Nehru-Gandhi dynasty dominated the Congress party for decades, but also oversaw its recent decline. Rahul Gandhi resigned as Congress president after the last elections. The next one is due in 2024.
Gandhi shared a picture of himself hugging his mother during the rally on Twitter: “The love I received from her is what I share with the earth”.
The “United India Rally” march began in September in the coastal city of Kanyakumari on the southern tip of India. It plans to cover more than 3,500 km (2,200 mi) to reach Srinagar in about 150 days.