Fighting fake news spread by BJP biggest challenge in 2019: Digvijaya

Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Saturday said that the biggest challenge for his party in the 2019 general elections was fighting the "fake news" that is being spread by the ruling BJP.

He also said it was only the ideology of the Congress which can defeat the divisive and communal ideology of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Digvijaya Singh said that the challenge for the party was to counter the lies being spread by BJP on the social media and also how the party could reach out to its core supporters, with whom it seems to have lost connect.

"We have lost connect with the core supporters of the party. We have reach out to them and re-establish the link with party supporters. They fight on social media supporting the party's ideology and get trolled, but they don't want anything in return from the party," he said during an interactive session with party workers.

"Fake news spread by the BJP is the biggest challenge in 2019 elections," he said, adding it was the biggest strength of the Narendra Modi government.

"How do we fight it (fake news), we have to think about it. They have been able to influence people by spreading lies about everything on social media," he said.

He also emphasized the need for all secular democratic forces to come together to defeat the ideology of the RSS.

Attacking Modi, Singh said: "We don't need a big (56-inch) chest, but a Prime Minister with a big heart."

He also stressed in order to counter the ideology of the RSS, one needs to understand it.

"They talk about Congress-mukt Bharat, but as long as the Congress party is alive, it is the only ideology that can fight the ideology of the RSS," he said, adding that instead of Congress-mukt Bharat, a "Bhay-mukt Bharat" (fear-free India) has to be established.

To a question by a party worker that why the Congress has always ignored Lord Rama while the BJP has been able to cash the deity well, he replied: "Lord Ram is being worshipped by us, but for BJP, Lord Ram is being used a political strategy, for political reasons."

--IANS

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