Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined on this week’s NL Hafta by BBC reporter Mayuresh Konnur, who starts the discussion by talking about his experiences covering the Congress party’s ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra. 

“They are saying it’s not political but when you attend their rallies, they are talking about Modi’s schemes and their solutions,” he says, giving a sense of how Rahul Gandhi was received in Karnataka in particular. He recalls one yatri telling him that Gandhi’s “image as non-committal to committal will have shifted by the end of this yatra”.

The panel also discuss the Congress yatra in the context of the upcoming state elections and the 2024 general election. 

They also talk about the firecracker ban in Delhi in this festival season. "Banning firecrackers on Diwali is not a silver bullet,” says Abhinandan, “but it’s a solution for preventing AQI of 1,000-2,000."

Listen!

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