South Indians look like Africans...": Sam Pitroda stirs up controversy
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New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Sam Pitroda courted controversy today when he described India’s diversity based on the people’s appearance, which the Congress leadership called ‘extremely wrong and unacceptable’, according to NDTV.
Sam Pitroda in an interview with The Statesman said that India is a ‘diverse country’ 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 Africa.’
Only days ago Pitroda landed the Congress in trouble when he suggested an inheritance tax like the one in the United States.
Following Pitroda’s latest remarks senior leader Jairam Ramesh said on X: ‘The analogies given by Sam Pitroda to India's diversity are extremely wrong and unacceptable. The Indian National Congress completely disassociates itself from these analogies.’
Senior BJP leaders including Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh, and his Assam counterpart CM Himanta Biswa Sarma were quick to critcise Pitroda.
" Sam bhai, I am from the northeast, and I look like an Indian. We are a diverse country - we may look different, but we are all one," Himanta Biswa Sarma responded on Social media platform X.
Actor-politician Kangana Ranaut, who is the BJP's Lok Sabha candidate for Mandi in Himachal Pradesh, said Pitroda was making "racist" and "divisive" comments.
"Sam Pitroda is Rahul Gandhi's mentor. Listen to his racist and divisive jibes for Indians. Their whole (the Congress') ideology is about divide and rule. It's sickening to call fellow Indians Chinese and African. Shame on Congress!" she was quoted as saying.
Pitroda was taking a question about the 2024 Lok Sabha election and the country's socio-economic fabric when he made the remarks about the diversity of the country based on appearances of people in different parts of India.
