'Get the house in order': Sanjay Jha's open letter to Rahul Gandhi amid Shashi Tharoor's growing rift with leadership

NEW DELHI: Former Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha on Monday wrote an open post for Rahul Gandhi on X, asking him to "get the house in order" amid reports of Shashi Tharoor's rift with the party.
"Dear Rahul Gandhi, I am writing to you publicly here because no one within the Congress is probably going to tell you this. So as usual, let me bell the cat," he wrote.
"Leadership ( corporate or political or any other) is about having difficult conversations. It is about trouble-shooting. It is not about living in denial; problems have to be addressed, they cannot be wished away.

"You and I both know that Shashi (Tharoor) is an outstanding parliamentarian. He is probably among the only few in the country to whom the cliché, “He needs no introduction” truly applies. It is therefore disappointing that once again a great asset of the party is being forced to talk to the media to get his message through to you or the Congress leadership. Almost five years to the date, I was compelled to write an article in a national newspaper when facing a similar predicament. No problem is intractable; the key question is do we have the will to solve them in everyone’s interest? And that too quickly," he said in the post.
"The Congress must be focused on taking on the BJP, but a prerequisite for that is to first get the house in order. This cannot become an ongoing unresolved challenge for years as it paralyses the energy and drive of the Congress workers and supporters. A challenger party has to be swift, desperate, risk-taking, hungry and on a constant prowl. It cannot be business as usual, for sure. We need to the hit the nail on the head going forward, but right now, we seem to be hitting our head on the nail," Jha wrote.
Four-time Congress MP Tharoor appears to be growing increasingly disillusioned with the party, following what he perceives as a continued sidelining by the high command.
His recent public criticism of a leadership vacuum in Kerala Congress and a meeting with Lok Sabha leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi to discuss his role in the party have fuelled speculation about his future within the organisation.