After Sam Pitroda controversy, Adhir Ranjan calls Indians 'Mongolians, N-types'

After Sam Pitroda courted major controversy over his "racist" comment that eventually led to him having to quit the post as Indian Overseas Congress chief, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury made another contentious statement where he claimed that there are "people of N-type class and Mongolians" in the country.

"There are people of "N" type class in our country, some are like "Mongolians", some are black, some are white, no denying'," said Chowdhury.

Pitroda recently stirred a political furore by his remarks about India's diversity.

He had said in a podcast: "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 the country as diverse as India together. Where people in the east look like the Chinese, people in the west look like the Arabs, people in the north look like, maybe, white and people in the south look like Africans.

"It does not matter. All of us are brothers and sisters. We respect different languages, different religions, different customs, different food," Pitroda said in the interview.

His comments went viral soon after.

BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, slammed Pitroda over his remarks, asking, “Will the ability of people be decided in my country on the basis of skin colour?”

"Who gave permission to 'shehzada' for this game of skin colour," he asked, referring to Rahul Gandhi, the Congress leader.

Pitroda quits

Following the intense backlash, Pitroda resigned as chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress "of his own accord".

"Mr 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," Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said on X.

He further said that the analogies Pitroda drew were "most unfortunate and unacceptable".

"The analogies drawn by Sam Pitroda in a podcast to illustrate India's diversity are most unfortunate and unacceptable. The Indian National Congress completely dissociates itself from these analogies," he said in a post on his official social media account.

(With inputs from agencies)