Bihar politician Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi a "fake backward" person, accusing him of falsifying credentials as an underprivileged individual and not really doing anything for Other Backward Class (OBC) communities. The comment came a day after the Prime Minister accused the main opposition Congress and its allies of "abusing my backward caste" in their attempt to accuse him of corruption.
"Narendra Modi ji is a fake backward. From birth till 55 years of age, he was upper class, suddenly one day he became backward. The true and real backwards are not liars, artificial, adulterated, decorative and ornamental. Do you consider backwards as stupid, Gujarati sir? What have you done for backwards, upper-class sir?" Mr Yadav tweeted in Hindi on Thursday as voting began for the second round of the seven-phase Lok Sabha elections. Five of the 40 constituencies in Bihar are among those voting on Thursday.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader, whose party is contesting the elections against the ruling BJP-Janata Dal United (JDU) coalition in alliance with the Congress, also claimed that there are no OBC officials in the Prime Minister's Office and slammed PM Modi for it.
"Dear Narendra Modi ji, you are not by-birth an OBC but a fake OBC. And, yes, you have committed theft. What have you done for the backwards? Not even a single official in PMO is OBC? No VC (university vice chancellor), professor in the country is OBC. Director of no constitutional organisation is an OBC. Why did you not increase the reservation for OBC in caste-based reservation?" he said in another tweet.
While addressing a rally in Maharashtra's Solapur yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had hit out at Congress and its allies for calling all those with the surname "Modi" thieves while accusing him of corruption.
"Congress and its allies say that all Modis in the society are thieves. Congress and its allies did not leave any shortcomings in abusing my backward caste and this time they have crossed all limits and abused the entire backward society," PM Modi had said.
Meanwhile, Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi on Thursday filed a defamation case against Congress President Rahul Gandhi, accusing him of saying that "all thieves have Modi in their surnames".
The BJP leader had claimed that Mr Gandhi has hurt the sentiments of crores of people with Modi surname. The Deputy Chief Minister said, "He (Rahul Gandhi) has referred to crores of people with ''Modi'' surname as ''chor'' and hurt their sentiments."
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