My nation, my family: PM slams Opposition’s ‘kinless’ jibe

Aditi Tandon

Advertisement

New Delhi, March 4

A day after senior INDIA bloc leader Lalu Prasad’s “PM has no family” jibe, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday wove a whole new election slogan, “Mera bharat, mera parivar”, hitting back at a “rattled opposition” on the eve of Lok Sabha poll.

Soon after the PM declared from a public rally in Telangana’s Adilabad that the entire country was united in the call, “I am Modi’s family”, top BJP leaders and Union ministers tweaked their social media profiles to suffix “Modi ka parivar” phrase to their names.

Ahead of the 2019 LS polls too, the PM and the BJP had spun the “main hoon chowkidar” campaign to counter then Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s “chowkidar chor hai” jibe at the PM. Congress veterans had later admitted that the anti-Modi remarks cost them at the hustings.

Bid to counter nepotism attack

INDI leaders are steeped neck deep in corruption, nepotism…. Because I question their nepotism, they have started saying Modi has no family. —PM Modi in Telangana

What Lalu said at Patna rally

What can we do if Narendra Modi does not have a family of his own? In Hindu tradition, a son must shave his head upon the demise of his parents. Modi did not do so when his mother died. —Lalu Yadav on Sunday

On Monday, BJP leaders JP Nadda, Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, Nitin Gadkari and a host of party functionaries and sympathisers called themselves “Modi ka parivar”, replicating the 2019 “main hoon chowkidar” instance. Modi for his part attacked Lalu Prasad without naming him today. “INDI Alliance leaders, steeped

neck deep in corruption, nepotism and appeasement, are extremely rattled. They have now unveiled their real election manifesto. Because I question their nepotism, they have started saying Modi has no family,” Prime Minister said to receptive crowds in Telangana.

He went on to add that since childhood his sole dream had been to live for the country and its people and that his life “was an open book” for anyone to read.

“My life is an open book and people keep track of what I do. They often write to me urging me to rest and not work too hard…. My only dream is to spend my lifetime realising your dreams, brighten up the future of your children…. This is the reason people love me like their own family member and I consider 140 crore Indians my family,” PM said, raising “Mera Bharat, mera parivar” slogan and repeating it in Telugu too.

When he asked the gathering to repeat it after him, the assembly responded with frenzied “I am Modi’s family” sloganeering.