Rengarpali (Chhattisgarh): In a major offensive against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, erstwhile Congress President Rahul Gandhi alleged on Thursday that the former was not born in the Other Backward Classes category as his Modh-Ghanchi caste was accorded OBC status by the Gujarat dispensation in the year 2000.
Addressing a meeting after his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra entered this state from Odisha, the visiting leader averred, “All 24 hours Modi keeps saying that he owes allegiance to the OBC segment while the truth is that he hails from the General Category.
Since the time I began exerting pressure vis-à-vis a caste census, Modi is saying that there are only two castes in India – the indigent and the prosperous.”
Seventy-three per cent of the populace is receiving nothing, dying of hunger and facing other hurdles, Gandhi alleged, adding that it is imperative to know about the distribution of wealth and other resources.
“Not a single OBC member, dalit or adivasi is present in the country’s 200 corporate houses. The General Category also has impoverished individuals,” he emphasised.
Accusing the powers that be of having a two-point programme of increasing injustice and disseminating violence plus hatred, the Congress leader added that unemployment is at its worst in a four-decade period; costs are spiralling and public sector undertakings being sold.
“Tribal land is snatched. Everything is being handed over to a certain industrial group,” he underlined.
However, the BJP leaders took to social media to share “truth" about PM Modi's caste.
BJP leader Amit Malviya said that Rahul Gandhi's claim "is a blatant lie". He said in a post on X, "PM Narendra Modi's caste was notified as an OBC on Oct 27, 1999, a full 2 years BEFORE he became the Chief Minister of Gujarat." He also tweeted a government notification dates October 27, 1999.
Union minister Pralhad Joshi also shared the notification and said, "Modi's OBC status was recognized on Oct 27, 1999, two years before he became Gujarat's Chief Minister."