NEW DELHI: On the day the photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi bowing to the Constitution became the cover image of the official ‘PMO India’ social media account, he asked his followers to drop ‘Modi ka Parivar‘ they had suffixed to their handles.
In March, several BJP leaders and supporters added ‘Modi ka Parivar‘ to their social media bios in solidarity with the prime minister after RJD chief Lalu Prasad took a dig at him for having no family of his own and the latter responded by saying that he considered the entire country to be his family, something that was seen as aimed at drawing a contrast with the opposition INDIA bloc, which he had accused of being a collective of dynastic outfits.
“With the message of all of us being one family having been effectively conveyed, I would once again thank the people of India and request that you may now remove ‘Modi ka Parivar’ from your social media properties. The display name may change, but our bond as one parivar striving for India’s progress remains strong and unbroken,” the prime minister posted on X on Tuesday. “Through the election campaign, people across India added ‘Modi ka Parivar’ to their social media as a mark of affection towards me. I derived a lot of strength from it. The people of India have given the NDA a majority for the third consecutive time, a record of sorts, and have given us the mandate to keep working for the betterment of our nation,” he added.
The day also saw the ‘PMO India’ social media account using the photo of Modi bowing before a copy of the Constitution before he was elected leader of the NDA parliamentary party. The choice came amid an evolving consensus that Dalits and a few other categories were influenced by the opposition’s allegation that BJP was seeking a 400-plus tally to scrap quotas by amending the Constitution. Modi and others in BJP refuted the charge, but the poll results show that the denials were not fully effective.
Reacting to Modi bowing before the Constitution, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, “This is the direct impact of Rahul Gandhi’s single-minded focus on protection of the Constitution as the defining issue of the 2024 elections.”
