Sam Pitroda re-appointed as chairman of Indian Overseas Congress

Sam Pitroda, who invited criticism from various quarters in recent months for his controversial remarks about people of different ethnicities in India, has been re-appointed as chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress with immediate effect.

Stirring a major controversy during the Lok Sabha polls, Pitroda unleashed a racist rant while speaking about people of different ethnicities who made India their home.

Pitroda, in an interview with The Statesman, 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 together as diverse as India, where people in the East look like Chinese, people in the West look like Arab, people in the North look like white and maybe people in the South look like Africans."

Following the comments, he faced severe criticism from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) allies, and many commented that such remarks represented the ‘Congress’ mindset.

Slamming Pitroda, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had said in a PTI interview, “I think what he was saying probably is what is the talk in the circles which he inhabits, possibly shared by people he has mentored, and I think there were two parts of it which were troubling for me.”

"One, what you referred to as typecasting and racial stereotyping. I think that was troubling for me. The second was actually a sense that you know what the remark implies -- that there are very different people, and somehow somebody has put it together, it has taken some kind of effort to bring them all together, to make India. I find that even more troubling," he said.

Pitroda later resigned as the Congress party's overseas unit chief.

Earlier, Pitroda was an advisor to former prime minister the late Rajiv Gandhi and has been closely associated with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, accompanying him during his foreign visits.