December 28, 2025 02:00 PM IST First published on: Dec 28, 2025 at 02:00 PM ISTI have known Digvijaya Singh longer than most people I know in the Congress. Labelled a gadfly by some, a motormouth by others, a necessary evil by his detractors within, Digvijaya was and is a marathon man. It is not easy to unsettle the Prince of Raghogarh, as he is often christened. He calls a spade a spade. His heart is in the right place. He is the quintessential old-fashioned romantic of Indian politics, a disappearing breed in the world of the transactional buy-and-sell of the men in white in Tarun Tahiliani masquerading as the saviour of the poor. The Raja may now be in the December of his political career, but he still packs a pugilistic punch.The Congress must take his advice seriously. He means well when he talks of organisational decentralisation; a recurring theme that remains largely unaddressed despite some synthetic steps taken of late. Congress needs a serious reboot. Here is why.AdvertisementAlso Read | Best of Both Sides: Congress should stop playing victimNarendra Modi and the BJP continue to thrive electorally despite their destruction of institutions, advertising of bigotry, egregious demonstration of corporate chumminess, subpar and underwhelming economic performance, in-your-face corruption, amongst several other items on a grocery list of transgressions, because the principal Opposition party has failed to invigorate its once formidable grassroots base for far too long. The lethargy is unpardonable. For a party that led India to its storied independence in 1947, to abandon its erstwhile unmatched base in every household of the country is nothing short of a catastrophe. It has tragic consequences for the country.That is Digvijaya’s worry. It is a legitimate apprehension. There is no one to check Modi’s rising graph of authoritarian bulldozing of our democracy. The hubris of this government is understandable. It is akin to a boxing match where your rival does not turn up in the ring.The Congress seems happy to make great speeches in parliament (Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, in particular, has been impressive) and run an outstanding digital campaign on Instagram. Rahul Gandhi has passionately dedicated himself to fighting the rigged election process. All this is perfectly fine. But winning elections requires a clinical, no-nonsense, non-negotiable how-to-win playbook. It needs leaders who have a take-no-prisoners attitude. Above all, one needs a hungry field force, the real warriors. That is the Congress’s Achilles heel. Only a hyper-kinetic organisational machine can deliver victories. The BJP and RSS have created that mega infrastructure, bolstered further by their Machiavellian tactics. The Congress is like a cottage industry by comparison.AdvertisementFor instance, the Congress has not yet understood that India is experiencing rapid metabolisation, courtesy of a demographic shift influenced enormously by technological invasions. Just one example will suffice; the millennials and Gen Z are separated by a few years, but are like two different species. These cut across rural-urban, income categories and gender divides. Political communication is strategic and relentless. It is a 24×7 buzzing cacophony. The loudest voice is winning the tug of war. Politics has become for the indefatigable. It is not for the fainthearted. It never was. Congress is occasionally brilliant, but frequently lobotomised. That will not work anymore. I know where Digvijaya is coming from; he can still walk and run a marathon faster than most of the Young Turks in the party. He is, I still believe, as fit as a fiddle. The party is not.The grand old party is over-relying on Rahul Gandhi to reengineer itself. It is bizarre; it is both unfair to him and the party that inspired Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. The Congress needs an asset inventory of its people and give the frontrunners a free hand to turn around the lazy behemoth. It still has more talent than the BJP (which has a Congress alumni network within, I assume), but no one knows who they are anymore.The party should stop behaving like an old warhorse. It should behave like a young stallion. It needs speed. It should make decisions. Quick decisions. Scrap useless committees. Dump the red tape. Stop feeding egos. It should be willing to make mistakes but be faster at correcting them. The age of sloth is over.most readRahul is rightfully waving the red book and talking about the threat to the Indian Constitution by the BJP. But ideological wars are not won by abstract intellectualism alone; they are won over trench warfare on the battlefield of democracy, called elections.Modi is eminently defeatable. Despite the absence of a level playing field, the Congress can lead the INDIA alliance to a victory cry. But the fundamental question remains: How badly does it want it? Digvijaya, I can assure you, certainly does.The writer is a former spokesperson of the Indian National Congress