'Power of organisation' remark: How Digvijaya Singh has pushed Congress against the wall over the years

Digvijaya Singh

• Digvijaya Singh praised RSS-BJP's organisational strength, sparking controversy.
• Shashi Tharoor supported Singh's call to strengthen Congress organisation.
• Singh's past remarks have repeatedly put Congress in difficult positions.

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If electoral setbacks weren't the only headache for the Congress party, periodic statements by prominent members of the party which goes against the 'intrinsic ethos of the grand old party is further making the task difficult for the high command.

A day after former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh created a flutter by lauding the organisational power of RSS-BJP 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, Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor came out in support of the views of his party colleague Digvijaya Singh, saying the organisation should be strengthened.

Singh is no stranger to controversies and is known in Congress circles as someone who speaks his mind — sometimes pushing the party against the wall.

Rajya Sabha MP's second innings in politics and his emergence as a national leader for the Congress after 2005 saw him court several controversies that haunt him to this day. In January 2023, Singh triggered a row when he raised doubts over the 2016 surgical strikes across LoC; he also raised questions about the 2019 terror attack in Pulwama, accusing the government of being “liars” who were yet to present a report in Parliament on “why the 40 CRPF personnel had got martyred’’.

Singh’s remarks saw a backlash from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which said the Congress was “blinded by hate” for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and had insulted the country’s Armed Forces. The Congress distanced itself from Singh’s comments, with senior leader Jairam Ramesh saying he “does not reflect the position of the party”.

Singh’s remarks when the Congress-led UPA government was in power also gave the party some headaches back in the day. His claim that the 2008 Batla House encounter was fake and the demand for a judicial probe had put the Manmohan Singh government in a spot.

His visit to Azamgarh in 2010 --  according to him to find out “the reasons behind Azamgarh being named in terror attack cases” — also pushed the party to a corner and he was seen as overdoing the “Muslim line”, often by making polarising statements.

The former Madhya Pradesh CM took on the then Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram, in 2010 on the government’s anti-Naxal policy, even calling him “intellectually arrogant” in a newspaper article.