Narendra Modi belongs to an upper caste but has “manipulated” OBC status for political gains, Congress said on Thursday seeking to “expose” the BJP’s PM candidate ahead of his crucial lok Sabha election from Varanasi.
Congress spokesman Shaktisinh Gohil, a known detractor of Modi, on Thursday released a State Government circular claiming that a year after he became the Chief Minister in September 2001, it declared ‘Modh Ghanchis’ to which Modi belongs, as OBCs.
The Congress’ “disclosure” has come at a time when the final phase of the lok Sabha polling is to be held, especially in constituencies that include Varanasi, from where Modi is contesting, and other seats in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar which form the cradle of the OBC politics.“Of late, the Gujarat CM has been indulging in a low level of political gimmickry. He has been desperately trying to invoke his OBC status and garner sympathy. Modi does not belong to Other Backward Communities (OBC) as he has been claiming to exploit OBC votes.
“He belongs to rich and prosperous Modh Ghanchis who were never given any kind of reservation nor were included in OBCs before Modi became CM. In the way encounters were fake in Gujarat, Modi is also a fake OBC,” Gohil said.Asking Modi to speak the truth and tell the nation why he committed a “sin of snatching the rights of OBCs by including an upper caste in OBC list”, he said the Gujarat Chief Minister should “apologise” to the backward castes for “insulting” them.
“Modi has committed the sin of putting ‘Modh Ghanchis’ in the OBC list. He himself engages in low level politics and when somebody raises a voice against it, he tries to project it as an insult to backward communities,” Gohil said.He dismissed Modi’s attack on Priyanka Gandhi over her “neech” rajniti remarks, which the BJP’s PM candidate interpreted as an attack on his caste origins.