Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday removed Sanjay Jha as spokesperson of Congress

New Delhi:

Sanjay Jha, removed as Congress spokesperson after a searing takedown of his own party in an article, doubled down on his criticism today in a tweet referring to Congress icon Jawaharlal Nehru. The Congress had “drifted far” from its democratic, tolerant and liberal values, he said.

“Pandit Nehru once wrote a self-critical piece anonymously in a newspaper warning against becoming autocratic. That is the true Congress; democratic, liberal, tolerant, inclusive. We have drifted far from those values. Why,” Sanjay Jha tweeted, adding that he remained a “committed, fearless ideological soldier” of the party.

Pandit Nehru once wrote a self-critical piece anonymously in a newspaper warning against becoming autocratic. That is the true Congress;democratic, liberal, tolerant, inclusive. We have drifted far from those values. Why?

I remain a committed fearless ideological soldier of INC.

— Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) June 18, 2020

Sonia Gandhi on Wednesday removed Sanjay Jha as spokesperson and appointed Abhishek Dutt and Sadhna Bharti as national media panelists for the Congress.

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

In the article published recently in a national newspaper, Mr 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.”

In the damning assessment, Mr Jha also suggested he was not the only one in the party with these views. “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.