New Delhi: To counter chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s Jan Ashirvad Yatra that started from Ujjain on July 14, Madhya Pradesh Congress president Kamal Nath on Wednesday flagged off the ‘Jan Jagaran’ yatra from Tarana situated some 35 km from Ujjain.

State Congress working president Jitu Patwari is leading the yatra, which is part of the Pol Khol Abhiyan, that will touch all the places where the chief minister is taking his campaign. The state assembly elections are slated for November this year.

Hitting out at chief minister Chouhan at a public meeting before the start of the Yatra, Kamal Nath said, “It is not a Jan Ashirvad Yatra but a ‘Vidayi’ (good bye) Yatra that the chief minister is taking out because this time the people have decide to send him back home and they have become aware of the fake promises and announcement of the Chouhan government.”

Comparing the chief minister’s Jan Ashirvad Yatra with the ‘Pol Khol” Yatra, Kamal Nath said, “The people who have come here have come on their own, but in chief minister’s yatra the people are brought to the venue in buses. The chief minister is riding a Rs 2.5 crore vehicle and spending Rs 200 crore on the yatra. Government machinery is being misused, Nath alleged and advised that government servants to stay away from such political rallies.

Nath said the Chouhan government has always insulted the farmers. “They have shot farmers and taken the farmer to court over power bills,” Nath said referring to the Mandsaur incident of June 6, 2017 where five farmers were killed in police firing while protesting. Nath reiterated party president Rahul Gandhi’s recent announcement in Mandsaur that they will waive farmers’s loan within 10 days of coming to power.