4 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Aug 20, 2026 02:06 PM IST
The ruling BJP has launched a sharp attack on the Congress following the Opposition party’s decision to limit the recitation of the national song Vande Mataram to its first two stanzas during its Working Committee meeting Wednesday.
BJP president Nitin Nabin accused the Congress of having formalised the “insult” meted out to the song at its Independence Day celebrations in the capital “into a resolution”. Union Home Minister Shah said the BJP will take its battle against the Congress’s decision, which was a reiteration of its 1937 resolution, to the streets, and called it part of “appeasement politics”.
The BJP has been escalating its attack on the Congress over the rendition of Vande Mataram during an Independence Day event at the party headquarters in Delhi. A controversy erupted after senior leader Sonia Gandhi allegedly objected to singing the full version of Vande Mataram.
“When, just a few days ago, this same insult had been exposed in the conduct of an individual, the Congress had dismissed it as a coincidence. Today, that very insult has become the Congress’s policy. This insult to the sacred invocation of ‘Bharat Mata’ is a contempt for those thousands of martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the nation, keeping this very song alive in their consciousness,” Nabin said in a post on X.
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“This is not merely a political defence, but proof of the hunger for that vote bank before which the Congress has repeatedly pawned the nation’s self-respect. The Congress has now become the new Muslim League of today,” he added.
Shah accused the Congress of having decided for the sake of “Muslim appeasement”, which he said had, before Independence, laid the foundation for the partition by “strengthening” the two-nation theory.
The Congress, Shah said, had made an “astonishing and anti-national decision”, issuing a public appeal to rise up against it, seeking to underline the events leading up to the creation of Pakistan.
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“Today, in the 150th year of the emergence of the great song Vande Mataram, when the Narendra Modi government has corrected that historical mistake…to strengthen national unity and… given it a legal framework, the Congress yesterday decided to dishonour it. The Congress’s decision only confirms its policy of appeasement; for vote-bank appeasement,” he added.
‘Insult to Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’
Shah alleged that the Congress had not only insulted the song’s author Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, but also “lakhs of martyrs who laid down their lives, and went to the gallows raising the slogan of Vande Mataram” for the freedom of the country and spent years in prison.
The Congress, Shah sought to underline, was implementing its 1937 resolution but rejecting an Act passed by Parliament in a bid to back appeasement politics in the country.
“I am surprised that the Congress party, under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, is once again taking forward appeasement politics in this country with enthusiasm. I appeal to the nation: the country made the mistake of letting Vande Mataram be divided into two parts once, and suffered its grave consequences,” Shah said.
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“Now, the country should come together and raise a cry against this decision of the Congress party and say that their politics of appeasement will not work anymore…the BJP condemns this decision of the Congress party. We will protest against this, both among the people and in legislatures,” he added.
