New Delhi : A day after Sam Pitroda was re-appointed as the chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party Spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla on Thursday launched a scathing attack against the Congress party saying that they kept a distance from Sam Pitroda during the Lok Sabha elections just to deceive the public.

 “The first thing Rahul Gandhi did as soon as he became the leader of the opposition was to become the leader of hypocrisy and leader of opportunism…One thing is clear from this that the cosmetic distance that the Congress party had made from Sam Pitroda during the elections was only and only a pretence, it was a lie, and it was to deceive the public,” said Shehzad Poonawalla.

Slamming Rahul Gandhi, he termed him “Uncle Sam’s reckless chela (student)”. Poonawalla further emphasised that the Congress party does not ideologically differ from Sam Pitroda and said that Pitroda has not accepted that the statement made by him was racist in any way.

“In reality, the Congress party agrees with everything Uncle Sam says…Uncle Sam Pitroda has not expressed any regret over his racist remark and the Congress party agrees with these things,” he said.

Lashing out at Pitroda, the BJP leader said that Sam Pitoda had expressed that his statement was not racist but the public who felt outrageous was racist themselves. Earlier on Wednesday, the AICC release said that the Congress President has reappointed Sam Pitroda to the position with immediate effect.

Pitroda had resigned from the position earlier in May this year amid controversies surrounding his remarks regarding the appearance of Indians. The Congress party then distanced itself from Pitroda’s remarks.

Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh informed about Pitroda’s decision to step down through a post on X.  “Sam Pitroda has decided to step down as Chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress of his own accord. The Congress President has accepted his decision,” the post mentioned.

Pitroda, in an interview with ‘The Statesman’, while reflecting upon the democracy in India, had said, “We have survived 75 years in a very happy environment where people could live together, leaving aside a few fights here and there.

We could hold a country together as diverse as India, where people in the East look like Chinese, people in the West look like Arabs, people in the North look like whites, and maybe people in the South look like Africans.”