Sanjay Jha Suspended from Congress for 'Anti-party Activities and Breach of Discipline'

Sanjay Jha was on Tuesday suspended from the Congress party with immediate effect "for anti-party activities and breach of discipline".

The Maharashtra unit of the party made the announcement on Twitter.

Jha's suspension came on a day when the party removed Sachin Pilot from the post of Rajasthan deputy chief minister and Congress state unit president after his revolt against the Ashok Gehlot-led government.

Earlier this month, Jha had resigned as president of the Maharashtra unit of the All India Professionals Congress (AIPC), saying "my political outspokenness conflicts with my official position".

Last month, Congress president Sonia Gandhi had removed Jha as a party spokesperson days after he wrote a newspaper article critical of the party.

In the article, 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 'The Times of India'.

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 written.