Sam Pitroda, the motormouth aide of Congress President Rahul Gandhi, has apologised for yet another controversial comments right in the middle of the Lok Sabha polls. Pitroda on Thursday had made light of the 1984 anti-Sikh genocide by saying ‘1984 mein hua toh hua (It happened in 1984, so what?)’
His comments had given fodder to BJP leaders including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who wasted no time in launching a tirade against the Congress ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha polls in Punjab. Modi said, “Yesterday a senior leader of the Congress said about the 1984 riots ‘it happened so what.’ Do you know who this leader is. This leader is the most closest to the Gandhi family…This leader is the guru of Congress President (Rahul Gandhi).”
कांग्रेस का अहंकार, उनके देश चलाने का तरीका, उनकी सिख समाज के प्रति घृणा…
ये तीन शब्दों में स्पष्ट हो गया है:
हुआ तो हुआ। pic.twitter.com/NwJfzG1yKJ
— Chowkidar Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 10, 2019
Modi also tweeted the video of his speech and said that Pitroda’s comments reflected the hatred of the Congress for the Sikh community.
Faced with widespread condemnation, Sam Pitroda issued an apology. “What I meant was move on. We have other issues to discuss as to what the BJP government did and what it delivered. I feel sorry that my remark was misrepresented, I apologise. This has been blown out of proportion,” he told news agency ANI.
The Congress had earlier termed Sam Pitroda’s comments as an opinion of an individual.
This is not the only time Pitroda has given an interview to news agency ANI to make comments that were detrimental to the Congress. In March this year, the controversial Rahul Gandhi aide had given an exclusive interview to ANI to defend the then Congress government for not carrying out any retaliatory action against Pakistan in the aftermath of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks.
He had said, “Eight people(26/11 terrorists) come and do something, you don’t jump on entire nation(Pakistan). Naive to assume that just because some people came here and attacked,every citizen of that nation is to be blamed. I don’t believe in that way.”
ANI had also quoted him as saying, “Don’t know much about attacks,it happens all the time, attack happened in Mumbai also,we could have then reacted and just sent our planes but that is not right approach.According to me that’s not how you deal with world.”
In September last year, Pitroda had cried foul after he gave an exclusive interview to Times Now’s ‘neutral journalist.’ After the interview was broadcast, he had taken to social media to express his disappointment on the conduct of his ‘neutral journalist’ Rahul Shivshankar.
It’s not surprising why Twitterati is slamming Pitroda for having become a liability of sorts for the Congress.
The fact that Rahul Gandhi has to rely on Sam Pitroda for advice to change his party’s fortunes, I can safely predict that RaGa May have to wait a lot longer to become India’s PM. He’ll mature as a leader the day he learns to identify who around him have become a liability!
— Rifat Jawaid (@RifatJawaid) May 10, 2019
If Sam Pitroda doesn't know Hindi well, he should just stop trying to speak it instead of blabbering nonsense and becoming a liability for his party. It's not as if the vast majority of the Hindi speaking population know who he is anyway.
— Siddharth (@DearthOfSid) May 10, 2019
A belligerent , 'know it all', arrogant, octogenarian Pitroda, who insists that he is not an active Congressman, has now become a liability to the party, scoring self goals. Hapy times ahead for BJP with this 'not so humble' man around in politics!
— Goutam Ghose (@GoutamGhose) May 10, 2019