If politics is only about sloganeering, Indian parties are the greatest players of this game on the planet. Most of the top players in almost all Indian political parties love to coin catchphrases, with most phrases downright inane and of such poor quality that admen would earn more from the big ones among the parties than what they pocket from corporate clients.

Some, though, are exemplary and become talking points, if only due to their sheer lack of import and abundance of ludicrousness. Mamata Banerjee usually excels on this front, calling every critic/questioner/baiter either a Maoist, a CPM sympathiser or both. But Digvijay Singh, general secretary of the Congress and the party’s prime Narendra Modi baiter, is no less.

Monday (August 19) was one of those good hair/bad hair days for Singh. He shot off a tweet early in the morning, calling Modi a “fascist”. Not that that hasn’t been said before, but what surprised many was the issue with which Singh tied the fascist knot on Modi: a speech delivered eight days ago in Hyderabad, asking the people to free India of Congress rule.

“Isn't Modi's and now BJP's slogan of CONGRESS MUKT BHARAT, FASCIST? Would all other non BJP Non Communal Political Parties pl respond? (sic)” Singh posted on Twitter.

It’s not known what happened between August 11 (when Modi made the speech and raised the pitch for a Congress-free India; read our spot report here) and August 19 (when Singh got up and posted three rapid-fire volleys on Twitter) but it sure is funny that a senior leader of India’s oldest political party feels the country would be left to run on the anarchists’ lane minus the grand old party.

At last count, the election commission of India (EC) had put the number of national parties at six, state parties at 52, and registered unrecognised parties at 1,112. Now, if Digvijay Singh seriously meant that minus Congress (which has to be wiped out from India, according to Modi) and the BJP (which, in that scenario, would be the one ruling India, according to Modi), the others can be discounted is in serious doubt. In all likelihood, he did not. That’s a little juvenile, right?

So did he mean the BJP under Modi would ride roughshod over all other parties in the absence of Congress? That’s a little arrogant, right?

So he must have meant that the Congress is the only party that stands between democracy and anarchy; worse, fascism? That it is the party Indian democracy cannot live without? That wiping out the Congress (electorally) is a fascist idea? And that anyone who says so is Mussolini and Hitler’s younger brother or sister (or nephew/niece, take your pick).

Last heard, that line of thought itself was deemed slightly overbearing. Or fascist, to use Digvijay Singh’s expression.

If Singh is eyeing possible pre-poll allies, the F-word was slightly ridiculous and hilarious in this case. If he was not, the F-word was downright condemnable.