Now, Modi versus Mayawati caste argument in UP

A remark by Priyanka Gandhi about Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi indulging in “neech rajniti (low-level politics)” led to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) taking on the BJP on Tuesday.

Experts and BJP leaders said it was going to be Mayawati’s BSP versus Modi’s BJP in the remaining election battle in UP.

On Tuesday, Mayawati questioned Modi’s claims to being a “pichchda (backward)”. Earlier in the day, Modi had interpreted Gandhi’s remark made on Monday as an insult to his backward caste origins. Gandhi had said on Monday Modi insulted the memory of her “martyred” father Rajiv Gandhi and indulged in “neech rajniti”.

Modi, in tweets on Tuesday morning and at a rally in Domariyaganj, said, for some people his politics would be “neech” as he hailed from a backward caste. By evening, Mayawati held a press conference to “expose” BJP’s “false affection” for the backward classes. She demanded that Modi reveal the precise backward caste he belonged to, insinuating that Modi wasn’t a backward.

In another development, Union minister Kapil Sibal labeled Modi a “spinmaster”. Rejecting Modi’s charge of Priyanka having insulted him, Sibal told reporters in Delhi, “He knows that he is misinterpreting. He does it purposefully. That is Narendra Modi. He will give it a spin that has nothing to do with fact.”

In Delhi, BJP demanded an apology from Priyanka for insulting Modi.