By Shishir Prashant 
PrashantNews
With more party leaders and MLAs openly coming in his support, Former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat on Monday night remained defiant over his “Dhanyawad Evam Jansamvad Yatra”, saying he could not understand how the programme was weakening the Congress when his election procession was not clashing with any of the party’s rally or any other programme.
After facing flak from Congress high command for his yatra, Rawat said he had explained his position to AICC general secretary K C Venugopal and had agreed to postpone the next eight to 10 programmes if the party was planning a coordinated campaign. However, he said he had declined to cancel Monday’s programme as it had already been announced and doing so would adversely affect the morale of hundreds of Congress workers.
A handful of top party leaders and MLAs including Madan Singh Bist, Sumit Hridayesh, Manoj Tiwari and others attended a public rally of Rawat at Haldwani where the yatra concluded.
Rawat said thousands of Congress workers, including elderly people from distant villages who were no longer active in politics or social life, had participated in or met him during the day-long yatra. He claimed that almost all senior Congress leaders had joined the programme in one form or another.
“Perhaps I could not explain my point properly,” Rawat said, adding that he would meet party state in-charge Kumari Selja on October 7 and explain his position. He said the party had every right to seek an explanation from him.
At the same time, Rawat questioned the absence of any sustained Congress mass-contact campaign across districts, blocks, roads and rural areas. “If there is no organised public contact campaign by the Congress, where is my Dhanyawad Evam Jansamvad Yatra weakening the party’s programmes?” he asked.
Rawat’s remarks came a day after he defied the Congress leadership’s direction and went ahead with the yatra in Jaspur, accompanied by senior party leaders including former state Congress president Pritam Singh and former minister Govind Singh Kunjwal.