Congress and BJP are engaged in an acrimonious exchange over the caste of BJP's Prime Ministerial nominee, who often claims that he was born in a backward class. Earlier on May 8, Gohil had released a copy of a circular, which he claimed was issued by the Gujarat government, to claim that Modi “manipulated” records to bring his ‘Modh Ghanchi' caste into the OBC list after he became chief minister in 2001.
Gohil had accused Modi of “indulging in a low level of political gimmickry” after the latter gave a caste spin to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's “neech rajniti” remark against him and claimed that he was being targetted because being born in a “backward caste”.
Accusing Modi of “garnering sympathy by invoking his caste status”, Gohil had said, “He belongs to rich and prosperous Modh-Ghanchis who were never given any kind of reservation nor were included in OBCs before Modi became CM. In the way encounters were fake in Gujarat, Modi is also a fake OBC”.
The Congress leader had quoted from Gujarati lexicon ‘Bhagvadgomandal' to claim that Modhs are rich people living in a particular village and Ghanchis belong to the prosperous trading class.
