The Union Health Ministry has updated the CoWIN vaccination certificates for COVID-19 by removing Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Photo. Previously, the CoWIN certificates featured images of PM Modi with the caption "Together, India will defeat COVID-19." Now, the certificates attribute the same quote to the Prime Minister without displaying his image.

Sandeep Manudhane, a user on X, brought attention to this by posting a picture of the Covid-19 vaccine certificate.

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare officials, speaking to The Print, explained that the image was removed in accordance with Election Commission of India (ECI) directives due to the enforcement of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) during the ongoing seven-phase Lok Sabha 2024 elections.

Numerous users on X (formerly Twitter) speculated that the recent disclosure related to Covishield, a vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII) under license from AstraZeneca, was the cause of the change in the vaccination certificate.

The Model Code of Conduct has been in place since 16 March 2024, but the action of the Election Commission comes more 45 days after the implementation of the MCC and 5 days after the completion of two phases of voting in the Lok Sabha 2024 elections...

The Prime Minister's photo had been removed from Covid-19 vaccine certificates in the past, and this was not the first occurrence. As reported by The Print in 2022, the Election Commission of India directed the removal of the Prime Minister's image from certificates in states where elections were underway, including Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh.

Source - Economic Times