“And that is why I say 140 crore people of this country are my family. The youth… crores of daughters, mothers and sisters… all the poor people in the country, they are my family. The millions of children and elderly in the country are Modi’s family. Those who have no one belong to Modi and Modi belongs to them. My Bharat, my family,” Modi said.

The Prime Minister’s remarks came a day after Prasad, at a rally of the Opposition INDIA bloc in Patna, said, “Modi keeps counting how many leaders have their children in politics. 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”.

The top leaders who added “Modi ka parivar” to their social media handles in solidarity with the PM included Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP chief J P Nadda and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. By Monday afternoon, the phrase was trending on X.

The social media drive is reminiscent of a similar campaign by the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha election in 2019, when party leaders prefixed “Chowkidar” to their Twitter profile names to counter Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “Chowkidar chor hai” jibe at PM Modi.

BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi said the RJD chief’s remarks against Modi were driven by the Opposition’s “grudge and jealousy”. “For years, we all have been seeing that they (Opposition) have made disrespectful and offensive statements against PM Modi with a feeling of jealousy, grudge, and inferiority complex…. I want to remind everyone that for him (PM) the family is the entire country,” Trivedi said.

Meanwhile, targeting the PM, Congress’s Rahul Gandhi wrote in a Hindi post on X: “Farmer in debt, youth unemployed, labourers helpless. And Modi’s ‘real family’ is looting the country.”