Is Cong moving away from ‘tolerance’ values?: Sanjay Jha after removal as AICC spokesperson for critical article

Team Udayavani, Jun 18, 2020, 1:11 PM IST

New Delhi: A day after his removal from the post of AICC spokesperson, Sanjay Jha questioned if the party was moving away from its tolerant and inclusive values.

Recalling how Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had once written a self-critical piece anonymously in a newspaper warning against becoming autocratic Jha said, “That is the true Congress, democratic, liberal, tolerant and inclusive. We have drifted from those values. Why?.”

Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday removed Sanjay Jha as a party spokesperson, days after he wrote a newspaper article criticising the party. She also approved the appointment of Abhishek Dutt and Sadhna Bharti as national media panelists for the Congress.

“Congress president has also approved that Sanjay Jha be dropped as AICC spokesperson with immediate effect,” the party said in an official statement.

In the article published a few days ago, Jha had said, “The Congress has demonstrated extraordinary lassitude, and its lackadaisical attitude towards its own political obsolescence is baffling…”

“I would like to call a spade a spade here and a shovel: there has been no serious effort to get the party up and running with any sense of urgency,” he had said in the article in a national newspaper.

“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,” he had said.