CHHATTISGARH: Rahul Gandhi, the head of the Congress, attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday, saying that its two-point platform promotes injustice and incites violence and intolerance. Gandhi was speaking at a public gathering in Rengalpali hamlet, located in the Raigarh district of Chhattisgarh, following his entry into the state from Odisha with his “Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra.” He also took aim at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, arguing that because the then-BJP administration in Gujarat had added his caste, the “ghanchi,” to the list of Other Backward Classes in 2000, he was not an OBC by birth. “The BJP’s two-point programme is to encourage injustice and spread hatred and violence,” said Gandhi. The Bharat Jodo Yatra, which took place in 2022–23, travelled 4,000 kilometres from Kanyakumari to Kashmir in protest of the BJP’s efforts to incite hatred and foster violence. He remarked that in order to seek justice for the people, the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra has now begun. Gandhi reiterated his party’s call for a caste census, asking, “If Modi ji is right and there are just two castes in India—the poor and the rich—then why did he become an OBC?Modi ji is not an OBC by birth. When the BJP administration in Gujarat was in power in 2000, Modi ji’s caste, the ghanchi, was included to the OBC (category). The OBC was not your PM’s source. He continues to refer to him as an OBC, but in reality, he belonged to the general category caste.
