Congress Escalates Attack on BJP Over Vande Mataram Controversy

The Congress on Thursday escalated its attack on the BJP amid the ongoing row over Vande Mataram, calling its leaders “fraudulent nationalists” and accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah of using the controversy to divert attention from their failure to address people’s issues. The opposition party's attack came after Shah criticised the Congress by saying the party's decision to sing only two stanzas of Vande Mataram was anti-national and in open defiance of the law. During a CWC (Congress Working Committee) meeting on Wednesday, some leaders raised the issue of Vande Mataram and party president Mallikarjun Kharge clearly stated the Congress position, senior leader Jairam Ramesh said. The Congress president read out a resolution passed by the CWC on October 28, 1937 by the likes of Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Govind Vallabh Pant and Acharya Narendra Dev, on the advice of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, Ramesh said, describing BJP leaders as "fraudulent and fake nationalists". On January 25, 1950, in the last meeting of the constituent assembly, Rajendra Prasad announced that the national anthem would be Jana Gana Mana and the national song would be Vande Mataram, Ramesh recalled. The national anthem comprises just one of the five stanzas of Jana Gana Mana, he pointed out. The Congress president said great leaders such as Gandhi, Patel, Bose, Azad and Pant passed the resolution on the advice of Tagore and for 90 years the party had been singing that part as the national song. "There can be no two ways that we will abide by the resolution of 1937," Kharge was quoted as saying at the meeting.