Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday requested his followers on X to remove “Modi ka Parivar” (Modi’s family) from their display names on social media. “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 now remove ‘Modi Ka Parivar’ from your social media,” Mr. Modi said on X.
Some BJP leaders. such as Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who lost the election from Thiruvananthapuram, removed the words from their social media handles earlier in the day. Party members, including Members of Parliament and ministers belonging to the BJP, added the parenthetical to their profiles in March.
Early that month, Rashtriya Janata Dal president and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav countered the Prime Minister’s rhetoric on “dynastic politics” with a rejoinder targeting his singlehood: “Narendra Modi is attacking dynastic politics (parivarvaad),” Mr. Yadav said in a rally on March 3. “Brother, why don’t you first tell us why you don’t have any children in your family?” Ministers and BJP members started adding the tag to their profiles as a counter.
“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,” Mr. Modi said in his post on Tuesday, requesting people to take the parenthetical down. “The display name may change, but our bond as one Parivar striving for India’s progress remains strong and unbroken.”
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Mr. Modi has also changed the profile and header images on his personal account as well as his official PMO account, apart from more recent photographs for his profile pictures. The header image on his personal account is a panoramic photo from the swearing-in day of NDA MPs elected to Parliament, and his PMO account features a picture of him bowing and raising a copy of the Constitution to his forehead in Parliament’s central hall.
