Causing a flutter ahead of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Saturday lauded the organisational power of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-Bharatiya Janata Party as he shared Narendra Modi’s old picture and said how a grassroots worker went on to become the chief minister and prime minister by sitting at the feet of their leaders.
IMAGE: Congress leader Digvijaya Singh shared this old photograph of Narendra Modi with BJP patriarch Lal Krishna Advani. Photograph: Courtesy @digvijaya_28/X
The BJP was quick to latch on to Singh’s remarks to hit out at the Congress, saying his praise was an ‘open dissent’ against Rahul Gandhi’s leadership.
Singh’s remarks came ahead of the crucial CWC meeting that decided on its agitational plan against the scrapping of MGNREGA from January 5.
Sources said Singh also raised the issue of strengthening the Congress organisation at the grassroots level, asserting it was much needed in the fight against the ruling BJP and to oust it from power.
The former Madhya Pradesh chief minister was, however, stopped by some other senior leaders during the meeting from raising matters other than MGNREGA on which the CWC was convened, the sources said.
As Singh continued to raise his issue of strengthening the organisation pressing for decentralisation, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge also told him to stop as he wanted to hear out the other leaders at the meeting too and take their suggestions and views, the sources pointed out.
Singh, however, later backtracked saying he only talked about the organisation and its strength and not the BJP or the RSS as he was staunchly against the two.
‘Quora site. It is very impressive. In what way did the grassroots ‘swayamsevak’ of RSS and the worker of Jan Sangh @BJP4India sat on the floor at the feet of leaders and became the Chief Minister of the state and the Prime Minister of the country. This is the power of the organization. Jai Siya Ram,’ Singh said in a post in Hindi on X.
Congress leaders did not take any questions from the media at the press briefing after the CWC.
“In fact, I praised the party organisation. You people have misunderstood things. I am a staunch opponent of the BJP and the RSS,” Singh clarified on his post after the meeting.
As media persons swarmed Singh and prodded him to speak further, he said, “You have misunderstood. I have only praised the organisation. I have and will always be opposed to the RSS, and prime minister’s policies.”
Asked further, he said, “Whatever I had to say, I have stated in the CWC.”
“We have to strengthen the organisation. Praising the organisation is not bad. In this vast country, if you see my tenure as chief minister and party president, I have functioned with decentralisation,” Singh also said.
Singh, a former two-time chief minister, is currently a Rajya Sabha member whose tenure is set to end on June 21 next year.
Taking a swipe at the Congress, BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi alleged, “It is because our Narendra Modi is ‘guddri ke lal‘ (a diamond in the rug) and their leader is ‘Jawahar ke lal‘ (great grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru). Since our Narendra Modi has risen to top from bottom, he is taking the party (BJP) also to the top from bottom.”
“Since their leader is ‘Jawahar ke lal‘ who is now ‘side down from up’, he is bringing his party upside down,” Trivedi told a press conference.
Another BJP spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari said on X, ‘Digvijay Singh openly dissents against Rahul Gandhi.’
‘He makes it clear that under Rahul Gandhi the Congress organisation has collapsed. Congress vs Congress on display,’ he added.
