Sam Pitroda re-appointed as chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress

Sam Pitroda

A month after Sam Pitroda resigned as the Indian Overseas Congress chief, nudged by the party leadership, the Congress in a late evening communique re-appointed him to the post.

In May this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the BJP’s frontal attack on the Congress after Sam Pitroda, a close aide of Rahul Gandhi, made a controversial statement to depict India’s diversity and accused the Congress of a racist mindset and trying to divide the nation on the basis of skin colour.

As a battery of BJP leaders, including Chief Ministers, joined in and the issue snowballed into a major controversy, the Congress distanced itself from Mr. Pitroda’s comments and called them “most unfortunate and unacceptable”. By late evening, Mr. Pitroda resigned as the Indian Overseas Congress chief, nudged by the party leadership.

https://twitter.com/ANI/status/1805972058368831670

Allies of the Congress such as D. Raja of the CPI and Sanjay Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party too targeted Mr. Pitroda, with Mr. Raja stating that the Overseas Congress leader “gave a handle to the right wing forces to attack”.

In an exclusive interview with The Statesman, Mr Pitroda had described India as a "diverse country... where people in the east look like the Chinese, people in the west look like Arabs, people in the north look like maybe white and people in the south look like Africa".