A study in self love: Modi and his personality cult

The event in Ahmedabad occurred on a day when neighbouring Maharashtra’s Shiv Sena-BJP government announced two schemes in its budget named after the PM

BCCI secretary Jay Shah presented Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a portrait of Modi himself at the world’s biggest cricket stadium, the Narendra Modi Stadium, in Ahmedabad on Thursday morning.

While BCCI president Roger Binny presented Australian PM Anthony Albanese with a picture of the visiting prime minister, Opposition parties criticised Shah felicitating Modi with his portrait in a stadium named after the PM to mark 75 years of India-Australia cricket ties as an example of the effort to shape a personality cult around Modi.

The event in Ahmedabad occurred on a day when neighbouring Maharashtra’s Shiv Sena-BJP government announced two schemes in its budget named after the prime minister.

Also Read | PM Narendra Modi felicitated with photo of Modi at Modi stadium

Maharashtra Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, who also holds the finance portfolio, announced Namo Shetkari Mahasanman Nidhi and Modi Awas Gharkul Yojana in the state budget he tabled in the Assembly on Thursday afternoon.

Under the Namo scheme, every farmer in the state will get Rs 6,000 a year as financial aid. The allowance will be in addition to the Centre’s PM Kisan Samman Nidhi.

Launched in February 2019, farmers get Rs 6,000 - three instalments of Rs 2,000 each - under the scheme. The BJP kisan morcha, its farmers’ cell, marked the fourth anniversary of PM Kisan Nidhi on February 24 as “NaMo Kisan Samman Diwas” in districts across India.

Under Modi Awas Gharkul Yojana, the state government envisages constructing 10 lakh houses for backward classes in the next three years.

In Ahmedabad, Modi and Albanese performed a lap of honour of the stadium’s playing field on a cricket-themed golf cart. “Doing a lap of honour in a stadium you named after yourself in your own lifetime - the height of self-obsession,” Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said, adding that the prime minister “is a self-made man and loves his creator obsessively”.

RJD Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha termed it the “height of narcissist politics”. “If I were his advisor, I would have told him to receive the photograph of someone else, preferably of Mahatma Gandhi. But it seems the honourable PM is enjoying this new ecosystem that keeps trumpeting ‘me, my and mine’. Such obsessions do not help in the long run,” Jha said.

Derek O’Brien, Trinamool’s leader in the Rajya Sabha, said, “NM. N for narcissist. M for megalomaniac. Please take your pick.”

On March 7, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai launched ‘NaMo Free Dialysis Centre’ and ‘NaMo Day Care Centre’ in Bengaluru. They also flagged off four NaMo Mobile Healthcare Units at the KSRTC Hospital.

The BJP has celebrated September 17, Modi’s birthday, as ‘Seva Diwas’ since 2015.

On September 15, 2022, with the Gujarat Assembly polls round the corner, the BJP-ruled Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation renamed a medical college it runs in Maninagar as Narendra Modi Medical College.

On December 29, 2021, the then Sikkim governor Ganga Prasad named a second road linking Tsomgo lake and Nathula border pass with Gangtok’ Narendra Modi Marg’. The older route is called Jawaharlal Nehru Road, reported PTI.