Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav and Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati want an “India of love” and the Congress has an ideological relation with them, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday.

Gandhi said that the doors of Congress’ Bharat Jodo Yatra are “open for all those who want to unite the country”.

The Wayanad MP said that he was certain that all Opposition leaders support the Congress’ march. “But in today’s India, there are compulsions, whether political or otherwise,” he said. “So I do not wish to comment on who is coming [to the Bharat Jodo Yatra] and who is not.”

Gandhi made the statement two days after Yadav had said that he has not received any invitation to join the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

“Our party’s principles are different,” the Samajwadi Party leader had said at a press conference. “The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress are one and the same.”

The Congress has said that the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which began from Kanniyakumari in Tamil Nadu on September 7, is aimed at countering the politics of hatred espoused by the BJP. The march is currently on a break in Delhi and will resume on January 3.

Several Opposition leaders, including MK Stalin from the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Aaditya Thackeray from the Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and Kamal Haasan from the Makkal Needhi Maiam, have joined the march for brief periods of time.

‘Congress will sweep MP polls’

Meanwhile, Gandhi asserted that the Congress will sweep the Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh expected to be held in November.

“I can give it to you in writing that the Congress will sweep the Madhya Pradesh elections,” the Congress leader said. “The BJP will be nowhere to be seen. There is no question about it.”

Gandhi claimed that every resident of Madhya Pradesh knows that the BJP formed the government “by stealing power and using money”.

The Congress came to power in Madhya Pradesh in December 2018 after it narrowly emerged as the single largest party in the Assembly elections. However, in March 2020, the Kamal Nath-led government collapsed when 22 Congress MLAs quit the Assembly after the resignation of senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who later joined the BJP.

On March 23, BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan took oath as the chief minister.