Sam Pitroda resigns from Overseas Congress post amid blowback for 'racist comments'

Sam Pitroda resigned from the post of Indian Overseas Congress Chairman, after his illustration of India's racial diversity landed Congress in trouble back home.

In an interview with The Statesman, Pitroda said Indians from East, West, North and South resembled Chinese, Arabs, Whites and Africans.

His remarks went viral and triggered a political firestorm, with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi leading the BJP's all-out attack on the Congress. Modi slammed Pitroda's comments as "racist" and asserted that people will not tolerate the attempt to insult them on the basis of their skin colour.

The Congress swiftly distanced itself from his words and criticised those as "most unfortunate and unacceptable". According to a PTI report, Pitroda stepped down, apparently after being nudged by the party leadership.

Pitroda was applauding how a country as diverse as India has stayed together for 75 years.

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

But Pitroda's choice of ethnic and racial identities in the analogy drew severe criticism from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

At his rallies in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, Modi said he is livid with the racial profiling of Indians by the US-based "philosopher and uncle of shehzada (Rahul Gandhi)", and linked the Congress's opposition to Droupadi Murmu's presidential bid to its mindset, which saw her as an "African" because of her dark skin.

He asked the Congress chief ministers of Karnataka and Telangana, Siddaramaiah and A Revanth Reddy respectively, if they will accept "such an accusation".

The prime minister asked if Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin will snap the DMK's ties with the Congress for Tamil pride. "Do they have the guts?" he asked.

Pitroda's controversial comments came soon after his reference to inheritance tax in the United States while discussing the Congress's Lok Sabha poll manifesto gave the ruling BJP a potent handle to accuse the opposition party of eying citizens' assets as part of its "redistribution of wealth" policy.

As a row erupted, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said on X: "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." Ramesh later announced Pitroda's decision to resign and that the Congress president has accepted it.

(With inputs from PTI)

Also watch: 'Angry' Modi blasts Rahul Gandhi over 'philosopher uncle' Sam Pitroda's 'racist' remarks