New Delhi: Congress’ Indian Overseas chairman Sam Pitroda steps down from his post amid his controversial Racist remarks on Wednesday. He handed his resignation to Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge and it has been accepted by him.
Before the fallout from Pitroda’s “inheritance tax” remark had even cleared, the leader caused fresh problems for the grand old party with his most recent remarks about diversity in India. Pitroda, who is frequently seen as a close assistant to Rahul Gandhi, claimed that people in the east of India resemble Chinese while those in the south resemble Africans.
“We could hold together a country as diverse as India — where people on East look like Chinese, people on West look like Arab, people on North look like maybe White and people in South look like Africans. It doesn’t matter. We are all brothers and sisters,” Pitroda said during an interview with The Statesman.
The Congress distanced itself from Pitroda’s remarks saying they were 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,” Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.
The BJP has hit out at congress terming Pitroda’s remarks as “Divisive” and “Racist”. These fresh remarks come amid his remarks for US style Inheritance tax in India. During an interview with news agency ANI, Pitroda called for a policy for wealth distribution in the country while citing the concept of inheritance tax which is there in some states in the US.
“In America, there is an inheritance tax. If one has 100 million USD worth of wealth and when he dies, he can only transfer probably 45 per cent to his children and 55% goes to the government. That’s an interesting law. It says you, in your generation, made wealth and you are leaving now, you must leave your wealth for the public, not all of it, half of it, which to me sounds fair,” Pitroda had said.
He later gave a clarification for his statement saying that his statement was twisted and they has nothing to do with Congress or its manifesto in the Lok Sabha polls.
