On Sam Pitroda's Comeback, What PM Modi Had Told NDTV

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.

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.