Anxious Indians who started inspecting their vaccination certificates to check whether they had been given Covishield, discovered that the photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was missing from the digital certificates.
Nearly 1.7 billion doses of Covishield have been administered according to the government’s CoWin data. The news of Covishield vaccine’s potential link to a rare condition that involves blood clotting, has sent alarm bells ringing.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has said that the removal of the photo was due to the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) in effect for the ongoing Lok Sabha polls.
In 2022, the PM’s picture was omitted from certificates issued in five states – Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur, and Goa – as per the Election Commission of India’s directive preceding Assembly elections in those states.
Earlier controversy
The photo had created a huge furore three years ago with the opposition blaming the Prime Minister for taking credit where it was not due.
In 2021, PM Modi’s image on vaccination certificates stirred controversy which reached the Kerala High Court. Justice P V Kunhikrishnan had then responded to the argument that certificates in other countries didn’t feature elected leaders’ photos by saying, “They may not be proud of their PMs, we are proud of our PM.”
Social media users are sharing their views on the missing photo. “Modi ji no more visible on COVID Vaccine certificates. Just downloaded to check – yes, his pic is gone,” tweeted one user.
On X, many users speculated that this alteration in the vaccination certificate was due to the recent health-related revelations concerning Covishield, which was manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) under a licensing agreement with AstraZeneca.
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