Purnesh Modi is a BJP MLA from Gujarat, the man who dragged Rahul Gandhi to court in a criminal defamation case over the ‘Modi surname’ remark which led to a two-year jail term for Gandhi and his subsequent disqualification from the Lok Sabha.
Modi had filed a criminal defamation complaint against Rahul for allegedly defaming the Modi community by his comments at a 2019 rally in Karnataka’s Kolar district.
Rahul had said that “all thieves have Modi as the common surname,” taking the names of Lalit Modi, Nirav Modi and PM Narendra Modi in the same breath.
Now the BJP leader has clarified that his surname was ‘Bhootwala’ earlier and that he was still a part of Gujarat’s larger Modi community by caste.
His clarification on the change of surname comes in the wake of the defence lawyer’s argument in the court that the complainant is not a ‘Modi’ as his earlier surname was ‘Bhootwala,’ which he later changed to Modi.
“The Teli community has a population of 13 crore spread across India and with different surnames. In Rajasthan, they are known as the Ghanchis. In Gujarat, they are the Modis,” Modi, a former Gujarat minister said in his response.
“In our community, people’s last names are mostly based on the work they do. There is a Lapsiwala, Dalwala, Chhonkhwala, Kadhiwala and so on. My ancestors were named after the mohalla (neighbourhood) they lived in,” he said, adding that his ancestors lived at Bhoot Seri in Surat, and hence, his family came to be known as the ‘Bhootwalas.’
As per Purnesh Modi’s submission to the Surat court hearing the case, he changed his last name in 1988.
Modi also submitted his school leaving certificate to the court, which stated ‘Bhootwala’ as his last name and mentioned the caste as ‘Modi Ghanchi.’
Modi is the name of a community whose origins are nomadic. The members of the community were engaged in the oil-making business and settled across Gujarat. The community got the Other Backward Classes (OBC) tag in 1994.
Rahul Gandhi was sentenced to a two-year jail term following his conviction and disqualification as an MP a year before the Lok Sabha election.
Modi, an office bearer of Gujarat’s Modi samaj (community), maintains that his complaint wasn’t political and that the community members came together and decided to lodge a complaint after Rahul’s remarks in Karnataka.
“The complaint was as a member of the community, though everyone is giving it a political nature now,” Modi said. “It is not about our victory or defeat. It is about this country’s social fabric. It is not right to relate to the entire community.”