'Politically unfit, dolt': BJP slams Rahul Gandhi over merit remark, Karnataka quota

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi came under fire over his "merit a flawed concept" remark and Karnataka government's minority quota decision, with the rival BJP on Friday calling the Lok Sabha leader of the opposition a "dolt", who is "politically unfit".
Sharing a clip of Rahul Gandhi's recent discussion on caste census, BJP's I-T department chief Amit Malviya said the Gandhi scion "ran down millions of people who come from poor and socially marginalised backgrounds and rise up in life on the dint of merit and sheer hard work".
"But how can one expect an entitled dynast to even understand what it means to compete and excel?" Malviya wrote on X.
"There is a completely flawed concept of merit where I confuse my social position with my capability because for anybody to say that our education system or our bureaucratic entry system is fair to Dalits, OBCs and Tribals...that's just a complete fallacy. Because they're culturally not connected to these communities at all. So the entire narrative is an upper-caste narrative. This notion of merit is actually itself an unfair idea," Rahul Gandhi had said in a discussion with professor Sukhadeo Thorat, a member of the Telangana caste surveys panel.

The ruling party also upped the ante against the Congress-led Karnataka government's approval of a 4 per cent minority quota in contracts, saying the state dispensation made the move "on the advice and aid of Rahul Gandhi".
BJP's Puri Lok Sabha MP Sambit Patra levelled the Karnataka government's quota decision as a "misadventure" and a "height of appeasement".
"On the advice and aid of Rahul Gandhi, Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah has eaten into the reservation which was due for the OBCs. This is not only unconstitutional but also misadventurous...This is the height of appeasement...Rahul Gandhi is unfit for a sound political decision. He is politically unfit and is trying to take forward his political ambitions through appeasement politics," Patra said in a press briefing.

Last week, the Siddaramaiah cabinet cleared The Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurements (Amendment) Bill, 2025, which proposes 4 per cent reservation for Muslim contractors in government tenders up to Rs 1 crore.
The move by the state government erupted in massive backlash as the BJP accused Congress of "dividing the country on religious lines" and demanded an immediate rollback of the legislation.