I was India’s first OBC PM, not Narendra Modi: H D Deve Gowda

BENGALURU: Former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda has said that he is “undoubtedly” India’s first PM from the other backward castes. This comes in the wake of BJP president Amit Shah projecting PM Narendra Modi as the first one from the OBC communities to occupy the country’s top post.

The matter has gained prominence as both the BJP and the Janata Parivar are vying for OBC votes in Bihar, an estimated 52% of the state’s population. Gowda, who heads the Janata Dal (S), told ET in an exclusive interview on Sunday: “I am undoubtedly the first OBC PM of the country. Amit Shah is mistaken.

And where does the BJP help the OBCs?” Gowda said his community, the Vokkaligas, who are landowners and tillers, have always been identified as “economically, socially and educationally backward” by every commission appointed by the Centre and Karnataka. “I used to receive a scholarship as an OBC student.” he said, adding that the fight to include his community in the OBC list was taken up by none other than Periyar in Tamil Nadu. “Right from the beginning, our community is part of the backward castes list and there is no dispute on this issue,” Gowda said Karnataka’s Backward Classes Commission chairman H Kantharaju, known to be close to Gowda’s protege-turned-foe, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah, also endorsed Gowda’s position.

“There is no separate classification of backward castes and OBC in our state. They are all the same. The Vokkaligas come under the 3A category of the OBC and get reservations in education and employment,” he stated.

Shah set the ball rolling on the issue on Friday, by claiming that his party had the credit of being the first to put an OBC man in the country’s top seat.