Sanjay Jha reminds Congress of tolerance after removal as spokesman

Congress removed Sanjay Jha, who had written an article in a newspaper critical of the party’s policies, from the post of AICC spokesperson, prompting him to question why the organisation had drifted away from its tolerant and inclusive values.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi had on Wednesday night removed Jha as AICC spokesperson “with immediate effect”.

A day after his removal, Jha reminded the Congress how Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had once written a self-critical piece anonymously in a newspaper warning against becoming autocratic.

“That is the true Congress, democratic, liberal, tolerant and inclusive. We have drifted from those values. Why?” asked Jha, who continues to be the President of the Maharashtra chapter of the All India Professional Congress.

At the same time, he asserted that he continued to be “a committed fearless ideological soldier of INC”.

In the newspaper article, Jha had written that it was a false claim that there exists a robust internal democratic process that listens to individual voices, and more importantly, is continuously focused on party renewal, political strategy, tactical warfare, leadership development and resuscitation starting at the grassroots, the erstwhile USP of the Congress.

“The Congress has demonstrated extraordinary lassitude, and its lackadaisical attitude towards its own political obsolescence is baffling, to say the least (and this despite a whopping defeat in two Lok Sabha elections and several reverses in states),” he had written.

“There are many in the party who cannot comprehend this perceptible listlessness. For someone like me, for instance, permanently wedded to Gandhian philosophy and Nehruvian outlook that defines the Congress, it is dismaying to see its painful disintegration,” Jha had written.