Is PM Modi a brahmin: BJP hits back at Trump trade advisor's remarks

Nishikant Dubey also sought to find a Rahul Gandhi link to the comments.

New Delhi: US President’s trade advisor Peter Navarro’s comments that “Brahmins were profiteering at the expense of Indian people” drew sharp reaction from the BJP on Monday.

Party MP, Nishikant Dubey, in a social media post on X, sought to know if Prime Minister Narendra is also Brahmin and which private petroleum companies are owned by the community.

“The US should think about CEOs like Sunder Pichai, Satya Nadella, and Indira Nui, who are all Brahmins and heading American companies,” he added.

Dubey also sought to find a Rahul Gandhi link to the comments. “It seems that Rahul Gandhi ji’s ignorance script has reached America?” Dubey said.

Responding to Dubey, TMC MP Sagarika Ghosh wrote on X that “Boston Brahmins” were once used in the US to refer to wealthy elites in New England, US. “It is still a term used to denote social and economic 'elites',” she added.

Speaking in an interview with Fox News, Navarro, a close aide of US President Donald Trump, acknowledged Narendra Modi as “a great leader” but failed to understand why the Indian PM was joining Putin and Xi when India is the “biggest democracy”.

“I would just say to the Indian people, please, understand what’s going on here. The Brahmins are profiteering at the expense of the Indian people. We need that to stop,” Navarro said.

Navarro has been a vociferous defender of US tariffs on India and has, in the past, even called the Ukraine conflict a “Modi war".