- Saturday, July 27, 2024
The ruling party’s leaders and ministers started ‘Modi Ka Parivar’ campaign after an opposition leader slammed the PM over his family and even said he is not a true Hindu.
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA’S ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday (4) came up ‘Modi Ka Parivar’ (Modi’s family), a major online campaign, after an opposition leader took a jibe at prime minister Narendra Modi over his family and even saying that the latter is not a true Hindu.
Lalu Prasad Yadav, chief of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), a major political party in the eastern state of Bihar and a former federal minister, launched a scathing attack on the prime minister at a rally in state capital Patna on Sunday (3) saying while the BJP leader accuses them of doing ‘parivarvaad’ (dynastic politics), what could they do if he did not have a family.
“What can we do if Narendra Modi does not have a family of his own? He keeps bragging about the Ram temple. He is not even a true Hindu. In Hindu tradition, a son must shave his head and beard upon the demise of his parents. Modi did not do so when his mother died,” Prasad, 75, said at a rally of the opposition.
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Modi hit back at Yadav’s remarks at a poll rally in Adilabad in the southern state of Telangana on Monday (4), saying, “I question their dynastic politics, they say Modi does not have a family, my life is an open book…I will live for my country.”
Modi often criticises a number of opposition parties for allegedly promoting a family as their central power holders, including the Indian National Congress, the country’s main opposition party. Prasad’s RJD is also led by his son Tejashwi Prasad, who has been Bihar’s deputy chief minister. Prasad himself has served as the chief minister of Bihar as did his wife Rabri Devi.
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Several BJP leaders, including home minister Amit Shah; defence minister Rajnath Singh; finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman; external affairs minister Subrahmanyan Jaishankar; women and child welfare minister Smriti Irani and others soon came up with solidarity for the prime minister by adding ‘Modi Ka Parivar’ suffix to their names on their respective X account. The BJP’s national president JP Nadda also did the same.
The BJP also targeted the opposition INDIA (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance) bloc over Prasad’s Hindu remark saying for them, Hindus do not exist and accused them of trying to break the nation.
In a press conference, BJP MP Sudhanshu Trivedi said, “For the INDIA bloc, there are no Hindus. For them, Hindus are backward, Dalit, ‘Savarn’, North Indian, South Indian, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, and even Hindi, but not Hindu. Because they want to see India in pieces. A family divided the country to get into politics and today, they stand with those who want to divide India so that they get to rule at least one division of the country.”
Earlier, Bihar’s deputy chief minister Vijay Kumar Sinha, who is from the BJP, slammed Prasad over his remarks, deeming them offensive towards the ‘Sanatan Dharma’ (Hinduism).
He said the language used by the veteran leader, who himself is convicted in corruption cases, against the PM showed his mindset. Sinha also called the RJD leaders ‘political jokers’ and said such forces should be stopped.
The Congress backed Prasad over the issue. Pawan Khera, chairman of the All India Congress Committee’s media and publicity department, told Asian News International news agency, “Why are they not worried for the families of those who commit suicide, whether they are youth or farmers. This is to divert from the issues. Every hour, one farmer and two youths commit suicide in this country. If they had been worried about them, they (BJP leaders) would have added ‘farmer’s family’ to their names… We wish PM Modi would have reacted to the suicide of those two youths who commit suicide every hour.”
