Not Sacked, Sam Pitroda Resigns as Congress’ Indian Overseas Chairperson

New Delhi: Hours after the Congress party's main man and Rahul Gandhi's uncle Sam Pitroda sparked nationwide outrage with his racist comments on Indians, the party – in a desperate move aimed at a covert coverup – announced late Wednesday evening that the controversial politician has resigned as the Chairperson of Indian Overseas Congress. 

Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh took to social media platform ‘X’, and wrote in a post: “Sam Pitroda has decided to step down as Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress of his own accord. The Congress President has accepted his decision”.

For the uninitiated, Pitroda landed the Congress party in yet another soup with his choice of ethnic and racial identities like Chinese, Arabs, Whites and Africans to describe how Indians from different parts of the country look like.

“We have survived 75 years in a very happy environment where people could live together, leaving aside a few fights here and there. We could hold the country as diverse as India together. Where people in the east look like the Chinese, people in the west look like the Arabs, people in the north look like, maybe, white and people in the south look like Africans”, the advisor to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had insinuated during a podcast.

“It does not matter. All of us are brothers and sisters. We respect different languages, different religions, different customs, different food,” he further said.

As his remarks went viral and triggered a political firestorm, the Congress – swiftly, yet conveniently – distanced itself from his words while criticising those as "most unfortunate and unacceptable".

"The analogies drawn by Mr Sam Pitroda in a podcast to illustrate India's diversity are most unfortunate and unacceptable. The Indian National Congress completely dissociates itself from these analogies", Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh had said in a post on 'X'.

What's interesting to note in the matter that has drawn condemnation from across the length and breadth of the country, however, is that the controversial leader wasn't sacked, but he “offered to step down”, as the maximum that the party could seemingly do in this regard was to go only so far so as to issue a public criticism of his remarks.

PM Modi Leads BJP's All-Out Attack On Congress Over Pitroda's ‘Racist' Analogy 

Earlier during the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the BJP's all-out attack on the Congress over analogy that Pitroda used to depict India's diversity.

Slamming his comments as "racist", PM Modi asserted that people will not tolerate the attempt to insult them on the basis of their skin colour.

Stressing that he is livid with the racial profiling of Indians by the US-based "philosopher and uncle of shehzada (Rahul Gandhi)", the prime minister linked the Congress's resistance towards Droupadi Murmu's presidential bid to its mindset, which, he said, saw her as an "African" because of her dark skin tone.

Dismissing the Congress's stand as "meaningless" by citing Pitroda's close association with the Gandhi family, the BJP launched a blistering attack on the Congress with PM Modi reportedly saying, “I do not get angry if someone abuses me. Today, the philosopher of 'shehzada' (prince) has inflicted such a big abuse that I am full of anger”.

"Will the people's abilities in our country now be decided by the colour of their skin? Who has allowed the shehzada to play this game?" he'd quipped.

Union minister and BJP leader Rajeev Chandrasekhar also cited Pitroda's long association with the Gandhi family and said he is explaining Sonia Gandhi's and Rahul Gandhi's idea of India. 

“When a senior Congress leader uses such language, it reveals the mindset of the party's leadership, which is grounded in divisiveness, racism and ignorance”, news agency PTI had quoted Chandrasekhar as saying during a press conference.

The opposition party's stand is nothing but hypocrisy, the minister had alleged, while asserting that Rahul Gandhi “only echoes and amplifies” Pitroda's views when he "runs down" Indian institutions and democracy during his travels abroad.

(With inputs from PTI)