Congress is insulting and dividing people based on skin colour, says Modi

WARANGAL/NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modion Wednesday attacked the Congress over Indian Overseas Congress leader Sam Pitroda’s analogy to depict India’s diversity calling it “racist” and asserted that people will not tolerate the attempt to insult them on the basis of their skin colour.

Later, Pitroda resigned as the chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, party chief Mallikarjun Kharge accepted.

Reacting to Pitroda’s references to how Indians from different parts of the country looked similar to Chinese, Arabs, Whites and Africans, Modi said he was livid with the racial profiling of Indians by the US-based “philosopher and uncle of shehzada (Rahul Gandhi)”.

He further blamed the Congress saying that it had opposed the candidature of Droupadi Murmu as President, only because of her skin colour, which Pitroda linked to Africans. “Does anyone value a person by seeing his skin colour, even Lord Sri Krishna was also black. The Congress is trying to insult the people based on the skin colour,” the Prime Minister alleged.

Modi asked the Congress chief ministers of Karnataka and Telangana, Siddaramaiah and A Revanth Reddy respectively, if they would 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 the Tamil pride. “Do they have the guts?” he asked.

In the podcast, Pitroda had said, “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 a 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. It does not matter. All of us are brothers and sisters. We respect different languages, different religions, different customs, and different food.”

However, as Pitroda’s remarks went viral triggering a political firestorm, the Congress swiftly distanced itself from his words and criticised those as “most unfortunate and unacceptable”.

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.”

“Sam Pitroda has decided to step down as the chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress of his own accord. The Congress President has accepted his decision,” Jairam Ramesh said in his post on X.

Pitroda was an adviser to former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and has been associated with Rahul Gandhi during his foreign visits.

The BJP, however, dismissed the Congress’s disassociation with Pitroda’s comments as it noted at a press conference that the US-based techie has a history of making “insulting and demeaning” comments, including on terrorism and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.