Reacting to the Congress party reinstating Sam Pitroda as chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, the BJP on Wednesday shared a clip of Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying in a May interview that Pitroda would be reinstated, and stated that Pitroda’s ‘resignation,’ as rightly anticipated by the Prime Minister, was only an ‘election gimmick.’
“As PM Modi anticipated, the Congress’ sacking of Sam Pitroda was merely an election gimmick. He has now been reinstated as Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, exposing the hypocrisy of the Congress party and its leaders,” the ruling party wrote on its X handle.
On May 8, amid the Lok Sabha polls, the Odisha-born Pitroda, now based in the United States, put in his papers as the head of the grand old party’s overseas wing. This came after two statements by the 82-year-old, first on inheritance tax and then his ‘racist remarks,’ led to the Congress distancing itself from his statements, and attacks by PM Modi and the BJP.
In his interview, one of the several interviews given by him during the elections, PM Modi told NDTV that Pitroda was making such comments as part of a ‘well-thought strategy’ by the Congress, adding that the latter would eventually be brought back by the Mallikarjun Kharge-led outfit.
Meanwhile, in his first reaction after being reinstated, Sam Pitroda, real name Satyanarayan Gangaram Pitroda, said that only ‘racist people’ were of the opinion that what he said was ‘racist.’
“I was not sacked. I stepped down willingly…The remarks were not racist. It is the racist people who thought it was racist,” he posted on X.
