Sam Pitroda, the Congress’s overseas unit chief, is back in his post — with an apparent caveat. The party’s communication in-charge Jairam Ramesh said Mr  Pitroda had “given an assurance” that he would, in future, leave no room for controversy. Asked about the matter, Mr Pitroda replied, a trifle sharply, that it was not the Congress view, but the view of Mr Ramesh.

“The Congress is not saying that. Jairam is saying that,” he told NDTV in an exclusive interview today. “What Jairam says is Jairam’s view, it is not necessarily the party’s view. It is okay for Jairam to say that and I respect it. I have to do what I have to do. In the process, I am entitled to make mistakes,” he said.

Mr Pitroda, who had stepped down from his post on May 8 after a couple of comments that became hugely controversial, was reinstated yesterday.

The reappointment was announced by the party in a statement. Later in the evening, Mr Ramesh said the decision was taken after Mr Pitroda clarified the context of the statements and gave an assurance that he would not “leave room for such controversies to arise” in the future.

In a post on X, Mr Ramesh said, “During the recent election campaign Sam Pitroda had made some statements and comments that were totally unacceptable to the Indian National Congress. By mutual consent he stepped down as Chairman of Overseas Indian Congress.”

“Subsequently he clarified the context in which statements were made and how they were later distorted by the Modi campaign. The Congress President has reappointed him on the assurance that he will not in future leave room for such controversies to arise,” he had added.

During the recent election campaign Sam Pitroda had made some statements and comments that were totally unacceptable to the Indian National Congress. By mutual consent he stepped down as Chairman of Overseas Indian Congress. Subsequently he clarified the context in which…

— Jairam Ramesh (@Jairam_Ramesh) June 26, 2024

Mr Pitroda had stepped down from the party’s overseas post after his comment that India is a “diverse country… where people in the East look like the Chinese, people on West look like Arabs, people in the North look like maybe White and people in South look like Africans.”

It had triggered allegations of racism and colonial mindset. With the controversy of Mr Pitroda’s earlier comments yet to die down, the Congress had found itself firefighting on multiple fronts, its campaign focusing on unemployment, inflation, farmers issues and the Constitution completely overshadowed.

In April, Mr Pitroda had made a remark on inheritance tax in the US that had drawn a fierce attack from the BJP. He had cited inheritance tax as an example of “new policies that can “help prevent concentration of wealth” which should be discussed and debated. The Congress, he had added, always helps people at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

Mr Pitroda today admitted that he could perhaps have put it better, while making the point that the focus today is not about the meaning in a conversation but its form.

What cannot be questioned, he underscored, was his commitment to the Congress.

“I am grown up. I know my responsibility for my party. I am committed to Congress. I have been a congressman from Day One and I will remain a Congressman till I die… It has nothing to do with what I say… but my commitment to values. I believe in the Congress ideology,’ he added.

New Delhi:

Decrying the excesses that had taken place during the period, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has hit out at the government for using the Emergency as a “diversionary tactic” and said that while imposing it may have been undemocratic, it was not unconstitutional.

In an exclusive interview with NDTV on Thursday, the senior leader, who has just been reelected as the MP from Thiruvananthapuram for the fourth consecutive time, also addressed issues like the demand for replacing the ‘sengol’ and the NEET paper leaks, which are set to dominate the ongoing session of Parliament. 

To a question on the Congress and other opposition parties opposing the references to the Emergency by Speaker Om Birla on Thursday and President Droupadi Murmu in her address on Friday, Mr Tharoor asked why something that happened 49 years ago was being “dredged up” so forcefully by the government. 

Accusing the BJP-led NDA of moving the goalposts and either talking about 1975 or 2047, and not about the present, he said the focus should be on burning issues like unemployment, the NEET paper leaks and the situation in Manipur. 

On the BJP using the Emergency to blunt the Congress’ plank that it was trying to save the Constitution, which yielded dividends in the Lok Sabha polls, the MP said, “The irony is that is actually one thing the BJP could not accurately say. I am a critic of the Emergency, but the very fact is that the Emergency may have been undemocratic, but it was not unconstitutional. It was a provision in the Constitution that permitted the imposition of an internal emergency. That provision has since been removed.”

“But it was there at the time and therefore what was done by the government in 1975 was strictly within the boundaries of the Constitution. So for the rashtrapati to say it was an unconstitutional attack or an attack on the Constitution is actually inaccurate in legal terms. I am not supporting the emergency; I think arresting opposition politicians, censoring the press and a number of steps taken were undemocratic steps, but they were, sadly, not unconstitutional steps,” he asserted. 

The Congress leader emphasised that the Constitution had not been suspended during those months and even the 42nd Amendment – which amended the Preamble and is referred to as a ‘mini Constitution’ –  was “passed within the provisions of the existing system”. 

“So I am not saying this is something to be proud of. I don’t think we should be debating the Emergency and politics today when there are more important things to do. But I am just challenging the claim that it was unconstitutional. It was not. It was completely within the Constitution, however undesirable,” he said. 

The ‘Sengol’ Debate

The BJP has attacked the opposition over the Samajwadi Party’s demand that the ‘sengol’ – a sceptre symbolising the transition of power from the British Raj to self-rule by Indians – be replaced with a copy of the Constitution in the Lok Sabha. The demand has also been backed by at least one senior Congress leader, who said that the baton symbolises “kingship”.

When Mr Tharoor was asked about this, he said, “This is a debate I personally don’t wish to enter into because I can see the arguments on both sides – one that it is a symbol of monarchy and we are a republic, and the other saying it is a purely symbolic thing and honours a part of India… And I don’t really want to pick and choose between these two things.”

“I will say, however, that what the Congress Party and the opposition are focused upon are the real issues facing people today, which, certainly include NEET. We are concerned about unemployment, particularly for young people, and we are concerned very, very seriously, about some of the issues the government simply does not want to talk about, from Manipur to the India-China border,” he emphasised. 

Advice For Rahul Gandhi?

Asked if he had any advice for Rahul Gandhi, who is now the Leader of the Opposition and is holding his first constitutional post, he said the former Congress president has emerged as a “considerable leader” in his own right. 

“The turning of the narrative began with the two Bharat Jodo Yatras, particularly the first one, which seized the imagination of the nation and of young people everywhere. He (Rahul Gandhi) moved on from there into this very effective, active campaigning for the Lok Sabha elections of 2024. I think his ability to now frame the narrative in a way that appeals to and attracts large numbers of people is beyond dispute. So I would say that he doesn’t need any advice from the likes of me,” Mr Tharoor said. 

“What he needs is now the opportunity to use the platform of being Leader of the Opposition to set the agenda for the government to respond to, and to ensure that the government is kept on the nation’s business rather than distracting us with what are really not relevant debates. A vast majority of the Indian population was not even born when the Emergency was declared,” he pointed out.

Opposition’s Strength

The Thiruvananthapuram MP, who was once in a race for the Congress president’s post, also said that it is in the government’s interest to focus on cooperation rather than confrontation with the opposition. 

“This is no longer a small number of MPs that you can just roll over with a brute majority. This is a very large swathe of Indian public opinion represented in these elections, and we are talking about 234 members in the India Alliance alone, as well as others who are not affiliated with the government… The problem often is that the government acts as if they don’t really need to consult the opposition and that, I believe, would be very unwise,” he warned. 

Sam Pitroda — Congress’s overseas unit chief who is back in saddle after a seven-week break — today stood by his statement about diversity among Indians that were seen as racist, but admitted that he could have put it better. “It is not about words but about the meaning… but maybe I could have done a better job,” he told NDTV in an exclusive interview.  And about the row that followed that comment, he shrugged it off.

“I have to run my life. They can twist the fact that I live in Chicago and why I am talking about India… I would expect civilised conversation, dialogue… but that is lost… People are not interested in the substance of a conversation, they are interested in the form of the conversation,” he said.

Mr Pitroda had stepped down from the post in May after his two consecutive statements sparked huge controversies. He was reinstated yesterday.

In an exclusive interview with The Statesman in early May, Mr Pitroda had described India as a “diverse country… where people on East look like the Chinese, people on West look like Arabs, people in the North look like maybe White and people in South look like Africans”.

It had triggered a huge uproar in the run-up to the election, coming on the heels of his comments about inheritance tax.

Barely two weeks before, Mr Pitroda had cited inheritance tax as an example of “new policies that can “help prevent concentration of wealth” which should be discussed and debated. The Congress, he had added, always helps people at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

His remarks were interpreted as advocacy of inheritance tax in India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had remarked that if elected, the Congress would redistribute the personal wealth of people among “infiltrators” and won’t even spare the mangalsutras of women.

Mr Pitroda today said no one had questioned him about what he meant before jumping to conclusions. “When I made the comment on inheritance tax, I did not mean that I’m proposing inheritance tax. How do you come to that conclusion?”

His comments about diversity were also twisted, he said.

“Next time I said something about – my way of saying how diverse we are, people thought it was racial. There is nothing racial in saying that we came from Africa. It is a fact of life. And who says that being black is racist? No. I am dark. My wife is not very dark. So what?” he said.

“We tend to make issues out of nothing. And that’s the reason I decided that is better to take myself out,” he added. That was the way to bring back the focus on issues that matter, he said.

New Delhi:

Congress’s Sam Pitroda — who stepped down from the post of its overseas unit chief in the run-up to the general election — is back in the saddle again. That he would be reinstated, was said by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an interview to NDTV.

“I sometimes think the party (the Congress), in a well-planned way, does this. I don’t think they (the members) do this on their own. Then they are kept out of the party for a  few days. Then they come back in the mainstream again,” PM Modi had said in May.

“This is what they did with their guru in America. He has resigned. Now he will be brought back again after a while… It is their well-considered strategy to create confusion in the country, change the atmosphere, create new issues, compel their opponents to react on these issues,” he had told NDTV.

Sam Pitroda had stepped down from the post after his two consecutive statements sparked huge controversies.

In an exclusive interview with The Statesman in early May, the Congress leader had described India as a “… diverse country… where people on East look like the Chinese, people on West look like Arabs, people in the North look like maybe White and people in South look like Africans.”

It had triggered allegations of racism and colonial mindset. With the controversy of Mr Pitroda’s earlier comments yet to die down The Congress found itself firefighting on multiple fronts, the Congress found itself firefighting on multiple fronts.

In April, Mr PItroda had made a remark on inheritance tax in the US that had drawn a fierce attack from the BJP.

He had cited inheritance tax as an example of “new policies that can “help prevent concentration of wealth” which should be discussed and debated. The Congress, he had added, always helps people at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

PM Modi had remarked that if elected, the Congress would redistribute the personal wealth of people among “infiltrators” and won’t even spare the mangalsutras of women.

New Delhi:
The election for the post of Speaker – a rare event in the history of the Lok Sabha – will take place today, with a recharged Opposition forcing a contest. The numbers, though, appear to give the government an advantage.

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