Congress invites BJP leader, ex-UP deputy CM to Bharat Jodo Yatra. He says...

Rahul Gandhi's ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra' will enter Uttar Pradesh on January 3 after traversing nearly 3,000 kilometres. The Grand Old Party has invited several non-Bharatiya Janata Party leaders including Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati and Rashtriya Lok Dal supremo Jayant Chaudhary.

However, Dinesh Sharma, who served as a deputy chief minister in Yogi Adityanath's first stint as the chief minister, has also been invited.

Sharma has been invited to the Congress march in his capacity as a professor of Lucknow university, PTI reported. When asked, the BJP leader said he came to know about the invite through media reports.

Rejecting Rahul Gandhi's offer, Sharma said, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi is making real efforts to connect India through construction of roads and other developmental efforts". He hit out at the Congress over the march, saying those indulging in ‘Bharat Todo’ (breaking the country) are undertaking ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’.

The ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ is currently on a nine-day winter break in the national capital. On Monday, Rahul Gandhi paid tributes to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at his samadhi. He also visited the memorials of Mahatma Gandhi, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Chaudhary Charan Singh.

While the Wayanad MP's gesture to pay tributes to Vajpayee was hailed by opposition leaders, BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya said he should have visited the samadhi of former PM PV Narasimha Rao who belonged to the Congress.

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“Rahul Gandhi visiting samadhis of former PMs is for the shutterbugs, chattering elites and part of his makeover exercise, the nth perhaps. If he was sincere about it, he should have visited the samadhi of Narasimha Rao in Hyderabad too. He didn’t, even though it was on his way…," Malviya tweeted.