After heading the Indian Overseas Congress for about two decades, Sam Pitroda, who was forced to resign from his post on Wednesday, had twice brought embarrassment for his party which is leading the crucial Opposition parties INDIA Bloc. The BJP latched on to Pitroda’s remarks and said the Opposition party is getting increasingly unmasked as the Lok Sabha polls progress.
Senior BJP leaders Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Sudhanshu Trivedi said Pitroda has highlighted the idea of India that Congress bigwigs, such as Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, believe in. They claimed that Pitroda’s “racist” comments have betrayed the Congress’s bid to divide the country on the lines of race, religion and caste.
Union Minister and BJP candidate from Amethi, Smriti Irani, alleged that it (Congress) tries to divide the countrymen on the basis of who is of which colour and who belongs to which region. She also accused the Congress of always dividing the country in the name of religion and caste.
Even INDIA Bloc major stakeholder Aam Admi Party’s AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said none of the members of the INDIA Bloc support Pitroda’s remarks and accused the BJP of “hating” the Dalits.
Pitroda has been a “mentor” to Rahul Gandhi, who has often run down the Indian democracy and the country’s institutions during his foreign trips, Chandrasekhar said while Trivedi mentioned the ongoing Lok Sabha polls have now become a battle between those under the influence of a foreign mindset in their definition of India and an India that is “aatmanirbhar” (self-reliant) and brimming with self-pride.
“Sam, Pity-roda on you!” Union Minister Anurag Thakur said in a social media post. “While for us, all Indians look like Indians, the Congress insists on categorising them based on foreign ethnic lines such as Chinese, Arab, White and African. Only a party with a colonial mindset like Congress could indulge in such deplorable racism.
“Having failed to stir division between the north and the south, Congress now seems intent on sowing ethnic discord. It’s only a matter of time before the Shehzada, following in the footsteps of his mentor, champions this divisive strategy,” Thakur said.
In the podcast interview to a media house, Pitroda said, “As a Gujarati, I love dosa, I love idli. That is my food, that is no longer south Indian food. That is the India I believe in, where everybody has a place and everybody compromises a little bit.... That idea of India, which is rooted in democracy, freedom, liberty, fraternity, is being challenged by the Ram temple and Ram Navami and the prime minister going to temples all the time and talking not as a national leader, but as a leader of the BJP.”
“That view centres around the Ram temple, god, history, heritage, Bhagwan Hanuman, Bajrang Dal and all kinds of issues. I respect their view. There is another group which says our founding fathers fought against the British Raj not for a Hindu Rashtra, but for a secular nation. Pakistan decided to create a nation based on religion and see what happened to them. We are a shining example of democracy in the world,” Pitroda said.
Earlier, the Congress leader had stirred up a controversy by talking about the inheritance tax, which the BJP turned into a poll issue.
