Igniting a political row and a debate within the party as the Congress Working Committee met Saturday, Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh heaped praise on the organisational strength of the BJP and RSS and the rise of Narendra Modi from an ordinary party worker to Prime Minister. He followed it by calling for “decentralisation” of power within the Congress and the “need for strengthening” its own organisational structure.
Singh’s remarks, in a social media post and later at the CWC meeting in the presence of the party brass including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Mallikarjun Kharge, come at a time when the party is grappling with a string of electoral setbacks, most recently in Bihar. A section within feels it’s time the party reconsiders its strategy on the way forward despite Rahul’s high-decibel campaign of “vote chori”, of elections being stolen from the Congress.
Sources present at the CWC meeting – it was called to discuss the party course of action against the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025, which has replaced the UPA-era rural job guarantee law MGNREGA – told The Indian Express that Singh said work needs to be done on the organisation of the Congress if it is to take on the BJP, and that he called for “decentralisation of power”.
“During the meeting, he said it was hard for the party to make its narrative reach the grassroots with its organisation being weak. He put across the point that because the Congress is up against the BJP-RSS, it needs to work harder and faster on appointing committees in districts, then blocks and wards. He said the appointment of District Congress Committees, being undertaken by the party, should be expedited,” a source said.
“Raising concerns of states not having leadership, Singh said while state presidents are appointed by the party, the committees under the state presidents are non-existent in many states. He said the same about the districts too, that the presidents for districts are appointed, but below them, posts are left vacant because appointments are stuck,” the source said.
“At the meeting, he said that through the organisation, the party needs to decentralise power and make it reach states and grassroots levels. He said that while district presidents are appointed, their committees are not. He said power has to reach states and that all decisions regarding the organisation can’t be kept with the high command and Delhi. He said no appointment can be made without a nod from Delhi and this results in a lot of work being stuck in a limbo. He said all this during the meeting, and everyone heard him, but no one intervened,” the source said.
Just before the meeting, Singh, in a post on X, said: “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.”
Accompanying this post was an old photograph that showed BJP leader L K Advani attending an event and a younger Narendra Modi sitting on the floor near him.
After the CWC meeting concluded, Singh told reporters, “You have misunderstood. I have only praised the organisation. I have and will always be staunchly opposed to the RSS, Modiji and his policies… Whatever I had to say, I have stated in the CWC meeting.”
“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 state president, I have functioned with decentralisation,” he said.
His X handle has a pinned post, dated December 19, calling for reforms and “decentralisation” within the Congress.
“Rahul Gandhiji, 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 ‘Sangathan 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 the post.
The Congress remained silent on Singh’s posts and what he flagged at the CWC meeting. During the press briefing by Kharge and Rahul Gandhi, no questions were taken from reporters and party leaders declined to speak on record on Singh’s remarks.
The BJP, on the other hand, used Singh’s remarks to target “divisions” in the Congress. “Digvijaya Singh openly dissents against Rahul Gandhi. He makes it clear that under Rahul Gandhi the Congress organisation has collapsed. Congress vs Congress on display,” BJP national spokesperson Pradeep Bhandari said.
ExplainedThe grouse within
As the Congress reels from a string of poll defeats, most recently in Bihar, and not many buying Rahul Gandhi’s ‘vote chori’ allegations, a section within wants the party to devise a new strategy on the way forward given that some key states will be going to polls in 2026. Calls for decentralisation stem from the grouse that all power, even in local appointments, rests with the leaders in Delhi.
Sudhanshu Trivedi, also a BJP national spokesperson, said the photograph of Advani and Modi that Singh posted was a “well-known photograph” and “a symbol of the working style of the BJP” where a person’s work performance decides mobility within the organisation.
Trivedi said it showed how “a person connected to the ground can, through his talent, capability and the support of the organisation, reach the top level and emerge as the most popular leader of India.”
“Digvijaya Singh has now become very senior and has been watching politics for a long time, so it is possible that he realised this, because Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi is ‘Gudri ke Lal’ (a worthy son of a humble family), and his leadership is not comparable to the ‘Jawahar ke Lal.’ The Congress leadership is ‘Jawahar ke Lal’, so they are upside down, and therefore they have brought their party to an upside-down state,” he said.
In December 2024, during the extended CWC meeting in Belagavi in Karnataka, the Congress launched the ‘Sangathan Srijan Abhiyan’, describing 2025 as the year for organisational strengthening of the party. Since then, the party’s District Congress Committees in several states have been appointed under the direct supervision of the Congress brass, including Rahul Gandhi.
The idea behind the Sangathan Srijan, which was supposedly Rahul’s idea, was to decentralise power in the party and give it to DCCs, but party leaders say everything is still in the hands of the leadership in Delhi.
Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting at Indira Bhawan, in New Delhi on Saturday. (ANI Photo) 
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