PM ‘exposed’ after Vande Mataram debate, says Congress

After both Houses of Parliament concluded a prolonged debate on 150 years of Vande Mataram, the Congress on Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and “his entire brigade” was left “bruised and exposed for their lies”.Congress general secretary and in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh, in a post on X, said the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha together spent three days discussing the national song. The national anthem had also figured in several interventions during the debate.

Ramesh said it was evident the Prime Minister and the BJP’s leadership had not read the two definitive and authoritative books on the national song and the national anthem, written by two of the country’s finest historians.

Sharing screenshots of ‘Rudrangshu Mukherjee’s ‘Song of India: A Study of the National Anthem’ and Sabyasachi Bhattacharya’s ‘Vande Mataram’, he said it was “too much to expect” that they would read these works “even after being thoroughly bruised and exposed for their lies”.

Earlier, Ramesh had cited remarks by historian Sugata Bose, who said that on Rabindranath Tagore’s advice the Congress had decided in 1937 that only the first part of Vande Mataram be sung at national meetings. “This further exposes the Prime Minister,” Ramesh said.

While the Lok Sabha took up the 150-year commemoration on Monday, the Rajya Sabha debated it on Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Monday, the Prime Minister had launched a sharp attack on the Congress, alleging that Nehru had betrayed Vande Mataram by yielding to Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s objections to the national song, leading to its fragmentation and “appeasement politics”.

The Opposition, on Wednesday, accused the BJP leaders of distorting history, and asserted that the government’s “whole aim” was to malign Jawaharlal Nehru and insult freedom fighters, including Tagore.

Proceedings in both Houses saw treasury and Opposition benches locked in a sustained verbal contest over nationalism, historical interpretation and the political legacy of Vande Mataram as Parliament marked its 150th anniversary.