Mumbai/IBNS: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday claimed the Congress is keen to create a rift among different castes to take political leverage and return to power.

Addressing a rally in poll-bound Maharashtra, Modi said, "Congress wants that different castes within the SC society keep fighting and quarreling among themselves. The Congress knows that if different castes of SC society keep fighting among themselves, their voices will get dispersed, their votes will get dispersed and as soon as this happens, the way will be paved for Congress to come to power."

"The Congress party knows that the weaker the country is, the stronger the Congress will be. That is why it is the nature of Congress to make different castes fight. Since independence, Congress never allowed our Dalit community to unite; Congress also kept our ST community divided into different castes.

"Congress gets irritated on hearing the name OBC. To ensure that the OBC community does not have a separate identity, Congress has played various games," he added.

The Prime Minister's scatjhing remark came a day after Leader of Opposition and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi once again batted for a caste-based census and vowed to eliminate 50 percent cap on quotas.

Gandhi said a caste-based census will reveal the correct representation of Adivasis, Dalits and OBCs in the government institutions.

"The country should be run by 90 percent of its people, not by three or four individuals like Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Adani and Ambani," said the Congress leader as quoted by The Times of India.

In response, Modi on Saturday said, "Congress is snatching away the rights of the Scheduled Caste community. Cheating on the SCs is both the strategy and nature of the Congress party. People should remember that one can be safe only when they are united."

Modi, the supreme leader of the country's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, is campaigning hard for the current coalition government in Maharashtra run by his party, Shiv Sena (Eknath Shinde) and Nationalist Congress Party (Ajit Pawar).

Maharashtra will go to polls on November 20 and results will be declared on 23rd of the same month.