Gujarat BJP leaders reject Rahul Gandhi’s charges on PM’s OBC status

Former Deputy Chief Minister of Gujarat and current Rajya Sabha member Narhari Amin on Thursday refuted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was not born into a caste belonging to the the Other Backward Classes (OBC), and that his caste was actually brought under the OBC category in 2000, during the BJP regime.

Narhari Amin, who was a deputy CM in the last Congress government in Gujarat, left the party in 2012, and is now a BJP MP. 

He termed Rahul Gandhi’s allegations “baseless” and “unfounded”.

His allegations triggered sharp reactions from the BJP at a time when the ruling party and PM Modi have been projecting the PM as the biggest OBC leader in the country.

Another Gujarat BJP leader, Purnesh Modi, who had filed a criminal defamation case against Rahul Gandhi for his remarks on the Modi surname, also rejected the charges and said that the Congress leader’s remarks were “insulting to OBCs”. 

According to sources in the State government, in July 1994, during the Congress rule led by Chhabildas Mehta, the Gujarat government had issued a resolution while adding the Ghanchi community in the State to the list of Socially and Economically Backward Classes (SEBCs), which forms the OBC castes in the State.