Friday night’s Newshour may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. In a dramatic development – even by Newshour standards – Congress spokesperson Sanjay Jha, suddenly broke down in the middle of a tirade by Arnab Goswami, and then to the shock of the other participants, flipped the bird at the camera and exclaimed “F*** you! I don’t want to do this shit anymore. I quit!”

The unexpected reaction by the normally calm Jha has shocked many. “I guess we took him for granted, given that he’s been doing this so long and so well,” said a worried Congress leader. “But clearly this job was eating him up from the inside.”

“It was a dog day for poor Sanjay, yaa,” sighed another Congress leader. “Agreed, he’s seen plenty of those, but last night was particularly bad. Not only did we not have a single issue we could attack the BJP on, but even people like Rajdeep went after Sanjay asking him to congratulate the Modi government on the corporate espionage issue. By the time he got to the Newshour panel, Sanjay was already shaken.”

Minutes after Jha’s outburst, support for the beleaguered spokesperson poured in on social media from all quarters. “We’ll miss you, Sanjay!”, “You are the classiest dodger ever! We love you!”, “Sniff! Now who will divert the issue to 2002?” were some of the messages. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra was among the first politicians to tweet to Jha. “You have taught me so much, Sanjay. Will miss you. Wish you good luck in whatever you do in the future,” he wrote.

Jha even received support from Team India, currently on tour down under for the World Cup. “All of us in the bowling unit empathize with him,” said Umesh Yadav. “Sanjay is like an Indian medium pacer on a flat batting wicket, called in to bowl over after over on the 2nd day of the Test, despite being tonked all over the wicket. We know how he feels.”

Corporate employees across the nation too expressed disappointment. “This is terrible news. Appraisals are up, and we were really hoping to watch Sanjay sir live in action and learn to spin, dodge and turn criticism on its head,” said Anand Manjrekar, a developer working with an IT firm. “Now we’ll have to make do with old videos.”