At 79, veteran Congress leader Digvijaya Singh is set to embark on another long-distance journey with his 950 km Satya Sanatan Swabhiman Yatra aimed at raising questions over alleged irregularities in electoral rolls and the management of donations at religious institutions.
The march, scheduled to begin on October 20, will take Singh from Ujjain to Ayodhya via Orchha over approximately 70 days. He has described its central themes as “vote theft” and “donation theft”.
Singh undertook the 3,200-km Narmada Parikrama on foot with his wife, Amrita Rai, in 2017–18. The journey followed the course of the Narmada River and was presented as a religious pilgrimage.
In 2022, he participated in Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, which sought to mobilise support around national unity, social harmony and opposition to divisive politics. Singh also served as chairman of the campaign committee for the march, which began in Kanyakumari and travelled northwards to Kashmir.
The yatra
The upcoming yatra, however, combines a religious pilgrimage with a campaign on electoral accountability. It will begin at the Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain, pass through the Ram Raja Sarkar temple in Orchha and conclude at the Ram temple in Ayodhya. Singh and Rai are expected to walk around 15 km a day over approximately 70 days.
Organisers have said the march will not carry Congress flags or banners and will instead focus on public awareness.
To mobilise support, Singh has released a pamphlet, launched a digital petition and circulated a missed-call number for people who support the yatra’s demands.
The yatra’s motto is “Yato Dharmastato Jayah”, which means “where there is dharma, there is victory”. Singh said that if people stood for truth, justice, honesty and the protection of the sanctity of religious places, they would be following the path of "dharma".
Referring to the yatra’s pamphlet outlining his allegations and demands, Singh said, "It contains allegations of donation theft, the theft of silver bricks, alleged scams involving land purchases near the Ram Temple, corruption in temple construction and the consecration ceremony, and scams that allegedly took place after the Ram Temple was built.”
Stated demands
Among his stated demands for the yatra, Singh has called for the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust to be dissolved and for its responsibilities to be transferred to the Ramalaya Trust, with representation from religious leaders and institutions. He also demanded legal action over alleged irregularities involving donations at the Ram temple.
The second focus of the yatra is the alleged irregularities in electoral rolls and the functioning of its Election Commission’s ECINet software. Singh said that 23 demands had been submitted to the commission, seeking to address concerns over the ECINet—a centralised, unified digital platform for all electoral services—and its alleged curtailment of the powers of Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) by preventing them from independently correcting electoral rolls.
“Our allegation is that the software developed by Mr Pathak, under the direction of Gyanesh Kumar, has completely taken away the powers of the EROs. We have raised objections to this, and we have placed around 23 demands before the Election Commission in this matter,” Singh said in a press conference on Thursday.
His allegations follow concerns raised over the deletion of 97 names from electoral rolls in Goa, where EROs were allegedly unable to restore them.
“In Goa, the names of 97 voters had been deleted from the electoral rolls. The ERO said that these names had been wrongly deleted and needed to be added back. However, when the ERO accessed the portal, they did not have the authority to add the names through it,” he said.