Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday tore into former Congress President Rahul Gandhi for questioning PM Narendra Modi’s caste. The Home Minister was speaking at the ET Now-Global Business summit.
Earlier on February 8 during his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra Rahul Gandhi had claimed that PM Modi is not an OBC by birth.
“Narendra Modi is not OBC by birth, he has been made OBC by the BJP government of Gujarat. He can never do justice to the rights and share of the backward people” Rahul Gandhi had claimed.
In his response the Union Home Minister Amit Shah lambasted Rahul Gandhi saying that the Congress has a habit of twisting facts and creating a controversy around it.
“Rahul Gandhi has a policy, lie publicly and lie again and again. As far as PM Narendra Modi’s caste goes, I doubt the Congress knows the difference between bloc and caste. PM Modi said he is an OBC, OBC is bloc not a caste. Maybe Rahul Gandhi’s teachers did not tell him this. This is extremely sad that questions on the Prime Minister’s caste are being asked” Amit Shah said.
“Modi ji’s community (jati) was listed as OBC on July 25, 1994, when the chief minister of Gujarat was Chhabildas Mehta and the party in power was Congress. Modi ji had by then not even fought an election, and was mostly working for the party. The state government run by Congress listed the community under OBC. In 1994 itself, Congress had made recommendations before the central government, which the latter accepted and listed in the year 2000. Even in 2000, Modi ji was nowhere in the government, not an MP, MLA, or a sarpanch. Modi ji became CM of Gujarat in 2001,” Shah added.
“The Congress has a habit of twisting facts and create a controversy around it. If they are creating controversy around it, I want to ask them what they did for the communities who fall under the OBC category,” Amit Shah further said.
Shah added it is PM Modi who gave constitutional recognition to OBC communities, formed a commission for OBCs, reservations in central government jobs for OBCs was implemented.
“The reports prepared by Kaka Kalerkar Commission and Mandal Commission were not implemented for years. Modi ji gave constitutional recognition to OBC communities, Modi ji formed a commission for OBC. The OBC reservations in central government jobs was implemented by Modi ji. Whereas, Congress has always been an anti-OBC party and they think they can garner sympathy of OBCs just by speaking lies” Amit Shah said.
“Congress has always been an anti-OBC party and they think they can garner sympathy of OBCs just by speaking lies,” added.
Further, on Rahul Gandhi’s argument that a handful of secretaries in the central government ministries are from the OBC community and are not proportionate to their overall population, Amit Shah said that the Congress must understand that most of the secretaries were commissioned long back during the Congress regime.
“They don’t’ see that the prime minister of the country is an OBC, but they ask about the number of OBC secretaries,” Shah said.
The Home Minister also spoke on the historic resolution on Ram Lalla Pran Pratishtha that was being discussed in Parliament.
“For about 500-550 years, people in this country have believed that Ram Mandir should be built where Lord Ram was…there were many agitations and it was stifled due to appeasements. When the judgement was due, a lot of people said there would be riots. When the judgement came there were no riots or rallies,” Shah said.
“Now this historic day has come and the PM himself did a 12-day fast to ensure that everything was done in accordance to scriptures. I have never seen such devotion. Today, everyone has the same devotion and seeing the temple with a sense of joy. When the entire country is rejoicing, and the Parliament must also rejoice and even the Congress must join,” Shah asserted.
On questions from some quarters that the latest Bharat Ratna awards were mostly to get political dividends, Amit Shah spoke about the contributions the award winners made for the growth of this country.
“If the title of farm lands in our country belongs to the farmers, the entire credit should go to Late Chaudhary Charan Singh. When Jawaharlal Nehru was the prime minister, he brought in an idea of collective farming in line with the communist pattern. Chaudhary Charan Singh was the only Congress leader who left the party opposing the move, and fought for the farmers’ rights.”
“Narasimha Rao has worked for years to keep Congress institutionalised. He was a linguist. Despite being from the southern part of the country, he had vast knowledge about the entire country — be it cultural, linguistic, and history.”
“And India can never forget the contributions made by Swaminathan ji for the green revolution. If today we are self-reliant in food grains, it is because of the contributions of Swaminathan ji,” Shah said.
Sharpening his attack against Congress, Shah said the Bharat Ratna awards given during the Congress regime were either out of compulsion or they were from their ‘family’.
