The Congress party’s 14-day-long ‘Voter Adhikar Yatra’, which covered 1,300 km across Bihar, will come to an end in Patna today. The conclusion of the yatra has gained political importance ahead of the upcoming assembly elections in the state. The final day will see a massive march called the ‘Gandhi se Ambedkar’ procession, which will be led by Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and joined by several leaders of the INDIA bloc.

Among the leaders expected to participate are Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, CPI(ML) leader Dipankar Bhattacharya, CPI general secretary D Raja, CPI(M) general secretary M A Baby, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut, NCP leader Supriya Sule, and TMC leaders Yusuf Pathan and Lalitesh Tripathi.

The procession will start at 11:15 am from the historic Gandhi Maidan, where leaders will first pay floral tribute at the statue of Mahatma Gandhi. From there, the rally will move through important routes of the city, including SP Verma Road, Dak Bunglow Crossing, Kotwali Thana, Nehru Path, and Income Tax Roundabout, before reaching the statue of BR Ambedkar near Patna High Court. At the end point, opposition leaders will pay tribute to Ambedkar and then address a public meeting.

The city of Patna has been decorated with posters and banners by opposition parties to welcome the leaders. Congress leader Pawan Khera earlier described the yatra as a kind of “religious pilgrimage” where people of all communities are taking part. He stressed that though the yatra is ending in Patna, it actually marks the beginning of a larger struggle to protect democracy.

The yatra was launched by Rahul Gandhi from Sasaram on August 17. Over two weeks, it passed through more than 110 assembly constituencies in 25 out of 38 districts of Bihar. Its main aim was to highlight the alleged wrongful deletion of voter names from the electoral rolls.

Opposition parties have claimed that about 65 lakh names were removed from the voter list as part of a special revision process, calling it an “attack” on people’s democratic right to vote. The matter even reached the Supreme Court, which directed the Election Commission to publish the deleted names by August 19 and submit a compliance report by August 22.

With the yatra concluding, the Congress and INDIA bloc leaders are looking to turn it into a rallying point for the upcoming election campaign, by highlighting what they call a threat to people’s right to vote and to democracy itself.