'We were forced politically to...': LoP Rahul Gandhi's big claim about Bharat Jodo Yatra

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington DC, said that our party was politically forced to take up the Bharat Jodo Yatra and the Nyay Yatra because all the instruments that normally work in a democracy were not working. He said the Bharat Jodo Yatra and the Nyay Yatra were the only ways to connect with Indians.

"We were forced politically to take out the Yatra because all the instruments that normally work in a democracy, they just were not working...The media was not working, the courts were not working...nothing was working so we said, okay, let's go direct. We went and it worked...It worked beautifully. This was at the political level and my work level but as an individual, at the private level, I always wanted to do it. I always wanted to do it since I was young. I always had this idea that I must, at some point in my life, walk across my country and see what it's about..." Gandhi said on Tuesday (local time).

He said that politics in India changed in 2014, PM Narendra Modi's first term as the Prime Minister. "I think politics in India changed in 2014. We entered a phase of politics we never saw before. Aggressive, attacking the foundations of our democratic structures. It's been a tough fight. And personally, it changed me," he said.

"I wouldn't have ever imagined before 2014 that I would have laughed at the idea of walking from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. But, that was the only way left for the opposition in our country. Media was suppressed, institutions were controlled, agencies were attacking the opposition, and governments were overthrown. We found that literally the only way to go to the people of India. That certainly changed me," the Congress leader further said.

Explaining his Yatras, Rahul Gandhi said, "One march was on foot, and the other was by car. One went from South India all the way to Kashmir- that was by foot... [which was] 4,000km. Other one was from Manipur which, as you know, is burning to Maharashtra."

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from ANI)