Indian Overseas Congress President Sam Pitroda has decided to step down from his post after his racist remarks about Indians from various regions, and the backlash that followed it. The resignation has been accepted by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge.
The resignation comes after Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda, popularly known as Sam Pitroda, claimed that Indians native to the Eastern side of the country resemble Chinese people, those living in the West appear middle eastern while North Indians look like ‘white people’ and the ones in the South are similar in appearance to the people of ‘Africa’.
Sam Pitroda stated, “We could hold a country together as diverse as India where people on the East look like Chinese, people on the West look like Arab, people on the North look like maybe White and people in the South look like Africa. Doesn’t matter. We are all brothers and sisters. We all respect different languages. We all respect different religions, different looks, different customs. different food and as a Gujarati, I love dosa, I love idli. That’s my food. That’s no longer South Indian food. Okay, that’s the India I believe in where everybody has a place and everybody compromises a little bit.”
Pitroda’s earlier comment on inheritance tax
Sam Pitroda was in the news last month for doubling down on ‘inheritance tax’. Amidst outrage over the Congress party’s ‘wealth redistribution’ poll promise, Chairman of Indian Overseas Congress and Rahul Gandhi’s advisor Sam Pitroda has suggested that a US-like inheritance tax should be brought in India. Pitroda while explaining the inheritance tax claimed that in the US, 55% of the wealth is grabbed by the government when a person dies and the rest goes to the family, suggesting that Congress can bring a similar policy under its wealth redistribution promise.