Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name and photo will be removed from the COVID-19 vaccination certificates in the five poll-bound States after the announcement of elections and implementation of the Model Code of Conduct on Saturday, official sources said on Sunday.
The Union Health Ministry would apply the necessary filters on the CoWIN platform to remove Mr. Modi’s photo from the vaccination certificates given to people in poll-bound Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, the sources said.
The Election Commission had announced the poll schedule for the five States on Saturday. Polling would take place from February 10 to March 7 and counting would be on March 10.
Similar changes were made during the elections to the Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala assemblies earlier this year, after the Election Commission wrote to the Health Ministry reminding it of its standing instructions against the use of photos of political leaders in government advertisements during polls. The Health Ministry had taken a few days to come up with the filters for the recipients of the poll-bound states as the certificates are generated through the centralised CoWIN platform.
