BJP counters Lalu's jibe against PM with Modi ka parivar campaign

On Monday, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders suffixed their social media profiles with the phrase “Modi ka parivar” to proclaim that they were Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s family members.

The BJP rank and file’s en masse changing of its profiles was to show its support for the prime minister a day after Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad told a public meeting in Patna on Sunday that Modi’s criticism of dynastic politics was because he had no family of his own.

Addressing a public meeting in Telangana’s Adilabad, the PM said 1.4 billion people of the country were his family. “Mera Bharat, mera parivar (my India is my family),” he said. "When I left home in my childhood, I left with a dream that I will live for the countrymen,” the PM said.

In Patna, Prasad also said Modi was not a Hindu since he didn’t tonsure his head and beard when his mother passed away. BJP National Spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said Prasad’s remark was consistent with the Opposition parties spewing “petty” comments against Modi, his caste, his ancestral profession, and his parents for the past 16-17 years. He questioned the RJD leader’s understanding of Hinduism.

“There is a guru-shishya (mentor and disciple) tradition in India, not father-son tradition,” he said. “You may have seen thousands of temples of Lord Hanuman, a devotee and a disciple of Lord Ram. Have you ever seen any temple of his sons Luv and Kush?”

“Prasad said Modi is not a Hindu. For this INDI alliance, no one is Hindu since they divide the country’s Hindus into castes, regions, languages, and states. Their agenda is to insult and uproot Sanatan,” Trivedi said.

After Modi’s Adilabad speech, Union Ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, and their other ministerial colleagues, BJP chief JP Nadda, were joined by party members from across the country in declaring themselves as Modi ka Parivar on their social media accounts. In his Independence Day speech on August 15, 2023, the PM addressed the people as mere priya parivarjan, or my dear family members, and has used that phrase to address the people in his subsequent public meetings.

The BJP’s move is reminiscent of similar support its leaders and workers displayed for the PM in the runup to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. In April 2019, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, alleging irregularities in the award of the Rafale fighter jets, declared “chowkidar chor hai”, or the watchman is a thief.

Gandhi launched a campaign targeted at the PM, to which BJP leaders and workers suffixed main bhi chowkidar to their social media profiles. Later, Gandhi apologised to the Supreme Court for attributing the phrase to the apex court, stating that he uttered it in the “heat of political campaigning”.

BJP sources pointed out that Congress leaders had similarly insulted Modi in 2014, when former Union Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar described him as a chaiwala, which became the defining theme of the BJP’s campaign, with the PM holding chai pe charcha events across the country. In 2017, another of Aiyar’s remarks in the runup to the Gujarat polls had the Congress suspend him temporarily from the party. It had the PM tell the people that the Congress leaders insulted him since he hailed from a poor family.

Off the record, BJP leaders said Prasad’s personal attack on Modi would boomerang on the Opposition just as in 2014, 2017, and 2019.