Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Wednesday accused the Congress of pursuing “appeasement politics” after the party reiterated that it would sing only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram.
The controversy follows an earlier directive issued by the Union Home Ministry this year, asking that the full stanzas of the national song be sung at the beginning and end of government programmes to mark 150 years since it was composed. A law has also been enacted recently to accord national honour to the song, under which insulting Vande Mataram is a punishable offence.
Shah said the Congress Working Committee’s decision was “anti-national” and claimed it was in line with a 1937 party resolution. He alleged that the party had historically split the song into parts to “appease Muslims” and linked that approach to the strengthening of the two-nation theory and the eventual Partition.
He further said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had corrected what he called a past mistake by giving the song due honour and legal recognition, and accused the Congress, under Lok Sabha Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, of reviving vote-bank politics by refusing to accept it.
The issue has also been fuelled by a video from the Congress office’s Independence Day event in Delhi on August 15, which sparked a row after it was claimed that Sonia Gandhi gestured in opposition to singing the song in full.
