Congress leader Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday, labelling their agenda as a two-point programme solely focused on "encouraging injustice and spreading hatred and violence.
Gandhi made these remarks during a public address in Rengalpali village, Chhattisgarh, while his ongoing Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra entered the state from Odisha. The Yatra, already spanning 4,000 km across India from Kanyakumari to Kashmir last year, aims to counter the BJP's alleged divisive tactics and promote unity and justice.
In a controversial statement, Gandhi questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi's self-declared backward caste status. He claimed that Modi's "Ghanchi" caste was only added to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) list in Gujarat by the BJP government in 2000, insinuating that the classification wasn't by birth.
Reiterating his party’s pitch for caste census, Gandhi said, If Modi ji says there are only two castes – poor and rich in the country, then how come he became an OBC. Modi ji was not born as an OBC. Modi ji’s caste ghanchi was included in the OBC (list) in 2000 by the then BJP government in Gujarat. Your PM was not from the OBC. He keeps on identifying him as OBC, but he was not an OBC, rather he was from the general category caste.