New Delhi. The Congress party had not yet recovered from the embarrassment caused by Sam Pitroda’s statement when West Bengal President Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury put the party in more trouble by giving a statement on the same issue. Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary said, “We have people of Proto Australoids…Mongoloid…Negrito race. Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary said that there are people of different races. It is noteworthy that BJP had reacted sharply to such remarks of Sam Pitroda and accused him of insulting Indians on the basis of skin colour.
Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary said that ‘regional characteristics are different in the demography of our country. What did someone say? This is his opinion. But it is true that some people are white…and some are black. Chaudhary’s statement is being seen as an attempt to defend Sam Pitroda after his racist comments.
BJP has also condemned this statement of Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary. BJP leader Shehzad Poonawala has also attacked Bengal Congress chief Adhir Ranjan over his comments about President Draupadi Murmu in July 2022. Poonawala said that ‘this shows that the words are of Sam Pitroda and the thinking is of Congress. Calling Indians ‘Negrito’… are Sam’s comments being justified. Is that why they didn’t fire him? Will they sack Adhir?
Earlier on Wednesday, a controversy had erupted over the remarks of Congress leader Sam Pitroda, in which he said that ‘people from the east of the country look like Chinese and South Indian Africans’. BJP targeted Pitroda over his ‘racist’ comments and claimed that it exposed the ‘divisive’ politics of the opposition party. Congress, however, distanced itself from Pitroda’s comments, calling them unfortunate and unacceptable.
FIRST PUBLISHED: May 9, 2024, 20:52 IST