'27 saal UP behaal': Congress announces 3-day bus yatra from Delhi to Kanpur

New Delhi: To woo voters in the Hindi heartland ahead of polls, Congress on Thursday announced a three-day bus yatra "27 saal UP behaal", starting July 23 from Delhi to Kanpur.

The yatra, covering around 600 km, will be flagged off by party chief Sonia Gandhi and her deputy Rahul Gandhi from the party headquarters at Akbar Road and its top leaders will address the yatra enroute.

This will be followed by a meeting of the UP Congress in Lucknow on July 29 that will be attended by Rahul Gandhi, senior party leader and head of the UPCC Campaign Committee Sanjay Singh said.

"The yatra will propagate the message to the people of Uttar Pradesh on the failures and misgovernance by successive governments of Samajwadi Party, Bahujan Samaj Party and BJP in Uttar Pradesh for the last 27 years," he said, adding that "we will campaign in such a way that we reach out to every voter at least three or four times".

Asked if Priyanka Gandhi will also be part of the yatra, he said, "We have been demanding for so many years that she plays an active role and we are sure that she will accede to our demand this time."

Top Congress leaders who will be part of the yatra and will address it at different places include party general secretary and in-charge of party's UP affairs Ghulam Nabi Azad,
UP Congress chief Raj Babbar and its chief ministerial candidate Sheila Dikshit.

Other important leaders will also address it including CLP leader in the state Pradeep Mathur and Coordination Committee chairman Pramod Tiwari.

It also seeks to unite various factions in the party and present a united face of UP Congress.

The yatra will cover four districts on each day and will take the route from Delhi to Ghaziabad and will cover Hapur, Amroha and Moradabad, where it will halt on the first day.

It will then travel to Shahjahanpur, covering Rampur and Bareilly and on the third day it will cover Hardoi, Kannauj and then end at Kanpur.