Robert Vadra reacts to Sam Pitroda’s ‘racist’ remarks

Businessman Robert Vadra on Thursday hit out at former chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress Sam Pitroda over his ‘racist’ remarks and wondered how an educated person like him could make such comments. Robert Vadra, the husband of Priyanka Gandhi, claimed that while she and Rahul Gandhi of the Congress are making efforts to push for the grand-old party, the BJP was getting a chance to “raise unnecessary issues” because of Sam Pitroda.
“When you are associated with this (Gandhi) family…with great power comes great responsibility. You have to think before taking any step. I absolutely disagree with what Sam Pitroda has said. ‘Bakwas ki hai’ (He has spoken rubbish)…How can someone so educated say something like this?” Robert Vadra told news agency ANI.
Robert Vadra added that considering Sam Pitroda, who resigned from the chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress position, was very close to Rajiv Gandhi, he should be a little responsible.
“…You come here and talk about this government’s mistakes, pointing out the shortcomings. But you are sitting on the sofa and saying anything, which is complete nonsense. I am very happy that he has retired. I wrote to him yesterday that all this is wrong,” he added.
Sam Pitroda sparked a fresh controversy on Wednesday after his video of an interview went viral on social media, in which he spoke about how Indians lived together unitedly in the last 75 years because Congress held the country with so much diversity together.
Elaborating further on the differences, Sam Pitroda said, “We could hold the country as diverse as India together. Where people in the east look like the Chinese, people in the west look like the Arabs, people in the north look like, maybe, white and people in the south look like Africans. It does not matter. All of us are brothers and sisters. We respect different languages, different religions, different customs, different food.”
Meanwhile, the Congress party distanced itself from Pitroda’s remarks and called it “unacceptable, unfortunate and absolutely wrong”.
“The analogies drawn by Mr. Sam Pitroda in a podcast to illustrate India’s diversity are most unfortunate and unacceptable. The Indian National Congress completely dissociates itself from these analogies,” Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said.
(With inputs from ANI)