Just ahead of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on Saturday, senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh kicked up a row with a social media post that appeared to “praise” the BJP and the RSS.
“I found this picture on the Quora site. It is very impressive. The way grassroots swayamsevaks (workers) of the RSS and workers of the Jan Sangh/BJP sit on the floor at the feet of leaders and go on to become the Chief Minister of a state and the Prime Minister of the country shows the power of the organisation. Jai Siya Ram,” Singh said in a post on X in Hindi.
He also flagged a picture from the 1990s that purportedly showed BJP veteran LK Advani attending an event in Gujarat and a younger Narendra Modi sitting on the floor near him.
Amid the growing row over his tweet, Singh said the “media had misunderstood him”. “I have praised the organisation. I am a staunch opponent of the RSS and Modi ji,” he said.
The controversy came a week after Singh called for reforms and “decentralisation” within the Congress, an issue he also raised during Saturday’s meeting of the CWC.
“Rahul Gandhi ji, you are absolutely bang on in matters of socio-economic issues—full marks. But now please look at INC also. Just as the ECI needs reforms, so does the Indian National Congress. You have started with ‘organisation srijan’, but we need more pragmatic, decentralised functioning. I am sure you will do it because I know you can. The only problem is that it is not easy to ‘convince’ you,” Singh said in a post on X on December 19.
The BJP used Singh’s remarks to target the “divisions” in the Congress. “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!,” the party’s national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari said.
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During the CWC meeting, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, in his opening remarks, said it was the party’s “collective responsibility” to develop a concrete plan against the renaming of MGNREGA and to build a nationwide movement over it.
“Without any study or evaluation, and without consultation with states or parties, the Modi government scrapped MGNREGA and imposed a new law, just as it did with the three black farm laws. At this time, there is a need for a nationwide movement,” Kharge said.
Targeting the Modi government, Kharge said that by scrapping MGNREGA, it had “stabbed the poor in the back after kicking them in the stomach.”
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd