Sam Pitroda’s inheritance tax comment: Is Chicago Forum back in the reckoning in Rahul’s Congress?

Sam Pitroda, chairman of the Indian Overseas Congress, is once again the eye of a political storm having advocated an inheritance tax law in the country, even as a beleaguered Congress sought to distance itself from the comments saying his views do not always reflect the position of the party.

Pitroda himself issued a clarification over his statement on inheritance tax, claiming that his remarks were twisted to deflect attention from the “core issues”.

During 2019 Lok Sabha, Pitroda had scored a self-goal of sorts when he had told ANI about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, “Hua to hua” (whatever had happened) in a matter of fact ‘so what’ manner. There are many in the Congress who feel Pitroda’s insensitive and politically incorrect instance had contributed to the party’s poor showing in the Lok Sabha polls.

The role of Sam Pitroda in Rahul Gandhi’s inner circle of advisors has raised many eyebrows within the grand old party. Pitroda, as head of the AICC’s Overseas chapters, is often seen as instrumental in the former AICC chief’s frequent tours abroad.

In March 2023, Pitroda was a regular fixture at Rahul’s interactions at Cambridge, London and other places in the United Kingdom. A section of the Congress leaders then had felt Rahul was ‘ill-advised’ to travel abroad soon after his impressive first round of Bharat Jodo Yatra. Instead of trying to convert the ‘liberals’ and Leftists and the Indian diaspora in UK, Rahul could have focused more on domestic politics, poll-bound Karnataka or in strengthening the Opposition unity.

Pitroda, a US-based engineer-turned-policymaker, was Rajiv Gandhi’s blue-eyed boy. He was responsible for finalising telecommunication policies and computerisation programmes. In the recent years, Pitroda’s clout has reportedly gone up many folds because Rahul Gandhi views him as a fatherly figure.

In his autobiography, Dreaming Big: My Journey to Connect India, Pitroda has given a graphic account of how he met Rajiv Gandhi in 1985 when the Indian prime minister was visiting the US to invite the technocrat to work with him. Pitroda recalled telling the Indian ambassador then, “Please tell the PM that I’m going to be in Washington with my wife. We would very much like to meet him.”

The ambassador was not sure, pointing that Rajiv Gandhi’s schedule was solidly booked. “I understand,” Pitroda remembers telling the ambassador, “Just say that Sam Pitroda would like to see him (Rajiv).”

Born in Anand, Gujarat, Pitroda had travelled from Chicago to Washington along with wife Anu and three friends, Prakash Desai, Rajiv Desai and Dr Divyesh Mehta. “We were being tourists and seeing some of the sights, when I heard from the ambassador that Rajiv was free for half an hour—between Caspar Weinberger, the then defence secretary, and George P. Schultz, the then secretary of state. All of us were free to come,” Pitroda wrote in his memoirs illustrating the comfort he had with Rajiv Gandhi.

During the meeting, Rajiv reportedly told Pitroda’s wife: “Anu, I know Sam wants to come to India. I want you to make sure the children’s admission to school is taken care of. It’s very important, and Sam may not understand these things in Delhi. Let me know. It’s essential to get them into the right school.”

Pitorda goes on to add, “He (Rajiv) was speaking to Anu in exactly the sort of language she wanted to hear. I couldn’t help thinking what a truly exceptional person he was—what an effort he made and how relatable he could be.”

Throughout 1986-89, Pitroda’s ties with Rajiv deepened. “He would call me at night sometimes, at ten or ten-thirty. ‘Sam, come.” So I would go with Anu to his home and we would talk, just the three of us…”

As Rajiv got into a number of political challenges including the Bofors scandal and VP Singh’s exit from the party, Pitroda emerged as a key crisis manager. By Pitroda’s admission, every day, some senior Congress leaders would meet at his 44, Lodhi Estate residence. “The players included Pranab Mukherjee, Jairam Ramesh, RD Pradhan, Suman Dubey, Krishna Rao, and several others. We’d all sit down and lay out a plan for that day, responding to the newspaper headlines, making our own headlines,” Pitroda would recall later.

Media and communication expert Rajiv Desai was also part of the now (in)famous Chicago Forum. Desai, politically inactive now, remained part of the Congress media department for years. In an interview, Desai had admitted how he and Pitroda had pushed for economic liberation in the 1980s. “As Indians in the US, Sam and I used to meet as part of the ‘Chicago Forum’. India’s liberalisation was always our agenda.”

Rajiv’s exit as prime minister in 1989 and subsequent assassination in 1991 temporarily halted the process of economic reforms. When PV Narasimha Rao became the ‘accidental prime minister’ and brought economist Dr Manmohan Singh as his finance minister, structural economic reforms became a reality. However, a protectionist lobby, also known as the Bombay Club, tried to block or slow down reforms. The Rao-Singh duo ably negotiated such obstructions but Pitroda sought leave, returning back to Chicago. He made a comeback after the Congress-led UPA came to power in 2004. Prime minister Manmohan Singh appointed him head of the National Knowledge Commission, a project meant to fast-track “social and economic development”, amid strong resistance from Arjun Singh and a section of the party.

During the Manmohan era, Pitroda, while heading the National Knowledge Commission, had many skirmishes with Arjun Singh who was Union human resource development (HRD) minister. There was a public spat when Arjun introduced job quota for other backward classes. It was believed that privately Prime Minister Manmohan Singh backed Pitroda for opposing reservations in Central educational institutions but AICC chief Sonia sided with Arjun.

Interestingly, in 2022, many overseas chapters of the Congress, namely from Spain, Australia, UK, Turkey, Bahrain, etc, had written a letter to Sonia Gandhi asking her to name Pitroda as a presidential nominee. But Pitroda reportedly declined sensing a futile contest against NDA’s Droupadi Murmu who tamed the Opposition nominee Yashwant Sinha with a big margin.

The author is a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. A well-known political analyst, he has written several books, including ‘24 Akbar Road’ and ‘Sonia: A Biography’. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.