Cong digs out NDA map in anthem fight

With by-elections round the corner, both the ruling BJP and the Congress are trying to keep controversies alive.

If the BJP has hitched on to the textbook error in Kerala, the Congress has dug out a map brought out by the former NDA government. After reports that the national anthem printed in textbooks brought out by the Kerala government had omitted the word ‘Gujarat’, Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said it was printing error into which no motives should be read. But the BJP Gujarat unit doesn’t want to let the matter go at that. On Friday, it decided to launch a statewide agitation on the issue on October 2, Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary.

Not to be outdone, the Congress has dug out a DAVP advertisement from the days when the BJP-led NDA government was at the Centre. The ad, with a picture of then PM A.B. Vajpayee, has a map of India with the Andaman & Nicobar Islands missing.

‘‘They’re raising a storm over the omission of Gujarat in the national anthem in Kerala, for that they are pointing fingers at us,’’ said Congress spokesman Hasmukh Patel. ‘‘But look at the BJP’s equally horrendous act in this map.’’