Editorial: Of Singh, Sangh and soul-searching

Party veteran Digvijay Singh has belled the proverbial cat in the Congress by openly comparing its lack of organisational strength with that of RSS-BJP

Questions over organisational decline in the Congress keep cropping up from time to time, but mum is the answer from the high command. A string of electoral debacles — Bihar and Delhi being the latest additions to its infamous inventory — has failed to wake up the grand old party from its deep slumber. The organisational overhaul — promised in the wake of the 2014 Lok Sabha drubbing — is yet to materialise. In the meantime, the party’s downward spiral continues, facing one electoral defeat after another. A virtual SOS from nearly two dozen Congress veterans, including former chief ministers and former union ministers, seeking “effective leadership and organisational overhaul” way back in 2020 went in vain. The latest to raise the red flag is former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh. He has belled the proverbial cat in the Congress by comparing its lack of organisational strength with that of the RSS-BJP. He created a flutter in the party, ahead of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting recently, when he praised the RSS-BJP for its organisational capabilities and a “decentralised” power structure. He illustrated his argument with an old picture where Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seen sitting on the floor in front of LK Advani, who is sitting on a chair. He described the elevation of an ordinary party worker like Modi to Chief Minister and then Prime Minister as a result of great organisational strength. Singh repeated his remarks about the better organisational strength of the RSS-BJP than the Congress in the CWC meeting as well.

Singh’s remarks, supported by another party veteran and MP Shashi Tharoor, must be a rude wake-up call for a party that refuses to learn lessons from its electoral losses. Given Singh’s consistent track record of being a strong critic of Sangh Parivar organisations and Narendra Modi, he cannot be accused of drifting towards the BJP. His call for organisational revamp in the Congress thus assumes a sense of urgency. What Digvijaya said publicly now, a large number of Congressmen have been saying in private for a long time. With the Assembly elections scheduled in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal later this year, the Congress must get its act together and reinvent itself to take on the ruthless electoral machine of the BJP. The Congress has claimed that history, values, and ideology remain its core assets. Whether these assets can be converted into electoral gains depends less on rhetoric and more on the party’s ability to reform, reorganise, and convincingly reconnect with the masses. The BJP, whose juggernaut rolls on, has dubbed the Congress an “army of sycophants” and the “weakest link” in Indian democracy. Such criticism should spur the grand old party to turn the tide. At 140, the Congress stands at a crossroads; its resurgence holds the key to the opposition’s prospects of combating the BJP.

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