SHILLONG, MAY 8: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma has condemned the racist remarks made by senior Congress leader Sam Pitroda against the people from North East region that, “they resemble the Chinese”.

“The comment that came from senior Congress leader Sam Pitroda is indeed very unfortunate and it has really hurt the sentiments of the people of North East and similarly people from other parts of the country,” Sangma said on Wednesday

“Being a person from the North East, we have seen and experienced in the past decades, different kinds of racial discrimination against the people of the North East and we had hoped that we have gone beyond that now, but when we hear senior leaders from the Congress party stating such derogatory and discriminatory language it does really hurt the sentiments of our people and so whatever context they may said, they have spoken in any context particularly comment like this doesn’t really go too well with the people of the country,” he added.

Reminding the Congress leader that India is a diverse country, Sangma said, “the principles of this country is based on the diversity of the people that we have, whether in terms of culture, language, looks and that’s what makes India what it is and when you start to discriminate and make such kind of statements it really goes against the entire idea of India itself. Therefore, I am very hurt and we condemn this particular statement from the senior Congress party leader Sam Pitroda.”

On Congress’ decision to distance itself from Pitroda’s remarks, the CM said, “The Congress party has distanced itself from the comment but if it was a small individual, a leader, a member it would not may be distancing themselves from the comment would be possible but here we are talking about a very senior member, a member, who has worked with the former Prime Minister, being part of the government in the past and hence, a person at that level giving a statement is equivalent to Congress party’s stance on certain issues and therefore, it has to go beyond just simply saying that they are distancing themselves as silence would only lead to people believing that this is also the stand of the Congress party so they will need to do more than simply saying that they are distancing themselves from the comment made by the individual.”

When asked, Sangma said, “absolutely, as always mentioned in the past also that India is a diverse country and we have seen many situations in the past decades where people specially from NE have suffered such kind of racial discrimination and these kind of comments have been made which as I said has been very painful.”

“Therefore, when it comes from a senior Congress leader, it hurts even more and as I said therefore, this is not going to go in line of really trying to bring the country together. Therefore, it is sad and it should not have been said and we highly condemn this particular statement made by this particular individual,” he added.

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