Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his reported remarks that the BJP needs to bring Dalits into its fold as nationalists were already with the party.
“So now ‘Dalits’ and ‘backwards’ are not nationalists Modiji?” the Congress leader said on Twitter.
Addressing a meeting of BJP leaders on Tuesday, Modi had reportedly said the party needed to woo Dalits and backwards to its fold without diluting the “nationalist” identity of the BJP.
The Congress and the BJP are aggressively wooing Dalits and OBCs for electoral success in the upcoming elections to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly. Dalits and OBCs, once ardent supporters of the Congress, have deserted the party over the years and backed regional outfits such as the BSP in Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP is seen as a party of the upper castes and is aiming at winning over Dalits and OBCs to replicate its success of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections when it had won 71 of the 80 seats in Uttar Pradesh.