Lok Sabha elections 2019 - ‘Born as backward, taking India forward’: PM Modi’s comeback to Mayawati

The opposition, led by Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, has been targeting PM Narendra Modi over his caste status.

Facing opposition attack over his caste, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said he was born a backward but he doesn’t do politics on such lines.

Facing opposition attack over his caste, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said he was born a backward but he doesn’t do politics on such lines. (ANI Photo)

At an election rally in Uttar Pradesh’s Kushinagar, PM Modi said poverty is his caste. “I have only one caste, I am poor. I have seen poverty, felt the pain of it and working tirelessly to eradicate it,” he said

The opposition, led by Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati, has been targeting Modi over his caste status. Mayawati has accused that Modi of being a “fake OBC leader” and alleged that he included his caste in the backward category during his tenure as Gujarat chief minister for electoral benefit.

Follow live updates of voting in Phase 6 here

“PM Modi in an effort to mislead people has now come up with a new explanation that his caste is the same as that of the poor. What else will he trick people with for the sake of electoral benefits? But how can the people forgive him for the plight of millions of poor people, labourers, farmers etc. for 5 years?” she tweeted on Sunday.

Mayawati had said that Modi can’t be a backward because the RSS would not have allowed himn to become PM if he was so. The prime minister has been attacking the SP-BSP alliance in UP accusing the two parties of indulging in caste politics.