It is a little early to be writing year-enders, of those who made news for good reasons and bad, but one doesn?t have to be a genius to know that this was the year that we heard rather too much of and from AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh.

Like the Scarlet Pimpernel, he is ubiquitous, yet elusive. His statements from his tweets, which begin at 6.30 in the morning to television bytes, which run throughout the day, made news all year through.

Discretion having never been part of my version of valour, the question was put straight to the man himself. Singh seemed untroubled by the splash he has made. With a gap-toothed smile, he said that his intentions are very clear, ?It is only the religious fundamentalists who find my statements provocative.?

Singh insists that he has always been outspoken on certain pet themes of his. The RSS and the Sangh Parivar being one of them. ?Have you noticed how they (Sangh Parivar and affiliates like Baba Ramdev) keep saying that I should be dispatched to a mental asylum, but refuse to answer my charges,? he said. Political pundits following his career for long insist that there is a method in his madness.

Singh is a career politician and scion of the minor principality of Raghogarh in Madhya Pradesh. In a state where leaders like the Shukla brothers, their father Ravi Shankar Shukla, Arjun Singh et al strode the political stage, Digvijaya Singh made a splash by becoming one of the youngest ministers in the state government under Arjun Singh in 1980 and its state unit president in 1985.

Madhya Pradesh Congressmen, more than in any other state, are no shrinking violets, especially when it came to the Sangh Parivar. The RSS and the Jan Sangh and later the BJP have always had a strong and aggressive presence in the state, under such leaders as Sunder Lal Patwa.

Taking on the Sangh Parivar is par for the course in the state for Congressmen, and Singh, with his gift of the gab and his confidence in engaging the enemy, has excelled at it.

It is, in fact, this aggression and engagement with the Sangh Parivar that forms part of Singh?s strategy for Uttar Pradesh, the state he is in charge of. The importance of Uttar Pradesh for the Congress and its plans cannot be overemphasised. It is the state where the Congress is an also-ran, despite its party president and its future president getting themselves elected from the state. The Mandal-Mandir politics of the 1990s left the Congress and its middle path nowhere, and at the mercy of several regional outfits at the Centre. A revival in the state is crucial if the party can ever hope to come to power on its own, a cherished dream of the party high command.

Project Uttar Pradesh, in simple terms, would mean weaning away Muslims from the Samajwadi Party and Brahmins from the BSP and the BJP. The weaning away of Dalits from the BSP seems a distant dream, but is also a work in progress.

Aggressive posturing on issues close to Muslims, like the arrest of some boys in Azamgarh on terror charges, the alleged complicity of the Sangh Parivar in terror attacks and including Muslims in the sub-category of OBCs for reservations, has been seen so far.

Quite clearly, the characterisation of the Congress as a ?Shivji ki baraat? or a wedding party with all sorts of guests has to be painfully reconstructed from very specific quarters. Muslims, Dalits, Brahmins, dining at other feasts, will, it is hoped, be lured into breaking bread with the Congress.

What he has been doing behind the scenes in terms of organisational work is no less remarkable for the Congress. Used to waiting till the last minute to know their fate, candidates for the yet to be declared polls in Uttar Pradesh were pleasantly surprised that candidates for nearly 135 of the 400-odd seats in the Assembly have been declared.

After losing the 2003 Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh, Singh had vowed that he would abjure any official position for the next 10 years. Despite being offered the Planning and Rural Development portfolio by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he has managed to stick to his vow. But in a party where it is difficult to recall the name of a single office bearer with any distinction, he has, very vocally indeed, marked his place.