“Childish”: Sanjay Jha attacks Congress for playing petty politics over his new book

Former Congress national spokesperson Sanjay Jha, who was ostracized from the Congress party for his damning indictment of the party’s leadership and accusations against the lack of internal democracy in the party, took to Twitter to chastise Congress party for playing petty politics over his new book ‘The Great Unravelling: India after 2014’.

Claiming that his book is not anti-Congress but only delves into the flaws of the party, he called Congress ‘childish’, for refusing to send a Spokesperson to a program which he was part of unless he was dropped from the program.

Sanjay Jha wrote: “The Congress refused to send a Spokesperson to a program I was part of unless I was dropped said a TV journalist to me. This is childish, churlish, I think. My book The Great Unravelling: India After 2014 is not anti-Congress but it does point out our flaws. This is one of them.

https://twitter.com/JhaSanjay/status/1341712771923111938?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Sanjay Jha, who was recently shown cold-shoulder by the Congress leadership after he managed to irk his party’s high command by voicing his dissent, insinuated that his third book, ‘The Great Unravelling: India after 2014’ which is set to release in December, has miffed the Congress high command to such an extent that they have been compelled to exhibit such puerile behaviour. He used the opportunity to clear that his book is not anti-Congress, but it touches upon the drawbacks of the party and its leadership.

Speaking about his new book, Sanjay Jha had said earlier that he had started conceptualising the idea after the Lok Sabha rout of the Congress in May 2019. “But I began putting pen to paper only after Mr Modi announced that famous first Janata curfew in March 2020. So this book can be called a Lockdown Project”, said Jha.

Through his book, Jha said he has questioned BJP as well as the Congress party, which he believed is trapped in its own internecine issues. Calling Bihar elections an eye-opener for the Congress party, Jha through his book has expressed displeasure over the functioning of the Congress party leadership. He believes that Congress has become completely disconnected from the ground and needs to introspect and change as soon as possible if it wants to remain in the race.

BJP has a far greater social media presence than Congress: Sanjay Jha

Sanjay Jha, in his new book, has opined that Congress Party’s obliviousness towards social media has somehow proved detrimental for the party. He said that Rahul Gandhi had initially refused to join Twitter as he considered the microblogging site an “urban fad”. Speaking on how BJP prudently used the social media platform as a route to power, he criticised Congress for lacking a basic understanding of social media. “This was a race between a BMW and a bullock cart, said Sanjay Jha, author of, “The Great Unravelling: India After 2014.

Congress needs to reaffirm its core ideologies: Jha

Jha feels that Congress needs much more than membership drives.“There is need today for a reaffirmation of the party’s core ideologies: inclusiveness, secularism, tolerance, the democratic spirit and progressiveness,” Jha says adding, “Only a commitment to these values can override short-term electoral disappointments. If Congress MLAs and MPs happily jump ship when the BJP offers them a fat wad from the Operation Lotus treasury, the Congress is equally culpable. It is guilty of giving tickets to those who can mobilize muscle power and have the ability to fix underhand deals to recoup their original ‘investments’, political workers for whom ideology is like a third shoe. Over the years, questionable characters have come to dominate the Congress’s political structure and organization, leading to organizational fragility.”

OpIndia Staff: Staff reporter at OpIndia