"India is angry at PM Modi's comment...": Sam Pitroda, takes on PM for comments on Congress manifesto

By Sidharth Sharma
Chicago [US], April 24 : Responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's attack on Congress manifesto and 'mangalsutra jibe', Chairman of Indian Overseas Congress Sam Pitroda said the Prime Minister thinks that the Indian audience is a fool and can be manipulated easily adding that the country is angry at the remarks made by him recently.
"No Prime Minister would speak like this. Earlier I thought it was an AI-generated video. PM thinks the Indian audience is a fool and can be manipulated. No Prime Minister would speak like this. He is not above the law. The Manifesto of Congress is very well drafted. To say that they will steal your gold and Mangalsutra. You are making stories up on your own. I think it is maybe due to fear, panic has been set in after the first phase. India is angry at the PM's comment, the nation is not happy with it," Sam Pitroda told ANI.
The remarks of the Congress leader came after Prime Minister Modi at an election rally in Rajasthan's Banswara last week alleged that the Congress wants to take away the gold and property of people and distribute it among "those having more children".
He said that those who left Congress these days have pointed towards the party's manifesto and said that the party has gone into "grasp of urban Naxals."Prime Minister said the party would conduct a survey and they would not even let Mangalsutra remain with women and "will go to this extent."
Pitroda further said that the poor section of the society needs assistance from the government and Congress has always focused on them.
"Congress has always focussed on the people at the bottom of the economic pyramid, whether they are OBCs, Muslims, Dalits, Tribals, homeless people, that is the platform of Congress. Billionaires don't need our help. It is the poor people who need our help. Inequality has substantially increased in the last 10 years. PM's approach is to take poor people's wealth and give it to the rich. You have created an environment where graduates are not getting jobs," he said.
Pitroda also backed the party's stand on the redistribution of wealth and advocated an inheritance tax law in the country. Emphasing the need for policy towards wealth redistribution, Pitroda elaborated on the concept of inheritance tax prevailing in America.
"In America, there is an inheritance tax. If one has 100 million USD worth of wealth and when he dies he can only transfer probably 45 per cent to his children, 55 per cent is grabbed by the government. That's an interesting law. It says you in your generation, made wealth and you are leaving now, you must leave your wealth for the public, not all of it, half of it, which to me sounds fair," Pitroda said.
"In India, you don't have that. If somebody is worth 10 billion and he dies, his children get 10 billion and the public gets nothing...So these are the kinds of issues people will have to debate and discuss. When we talk about redistributing wealth, we are talking about new policies and new programs that are in the interest of the people and not in the interest of the super-rich only," he added.
Pitroda also said that the subject of wealth distribution is strictly a 'policy issue' and he feels concerned about Prime Minister Modi after his remarks on the Congress manifesto.
"This is a policy issue. Congress party would frame a policy through which the wealth distribution would be better. We don't have a minimum wage (in India). If we come up with a minimum wage in the country saying you must pay so much money to the poor, that's the distribution of wealth. Today, rich people don't pay their peons, servants, and home help enough but they spend that money on vacation in Dubai and London...When you talk about the distribution of wealth, it is not that you sit on a chair and say I have this much money and I'll be distributing it to everybody," Pitroda said.
"It's naive to think like that. The PM of a country thinks like that...I have some concerns about his brain," he said when asked to comment on the Prime Minister's criticism of the Congress manifesto.
In India, the concept of levying tax on inheritance does not exist as of now. In fact, the Inheritance or Estate Tax was abolished with effect from 1985.