NEW DELHI: After both Houses held a debate on 150 years of Vande Mataram, the Congress on Thursday claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and “his entire brigade” had been thoroughly “bruised and exposed for their lies”.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh noted that the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha debated Vande Mataram for three days.
The national anthem also figured in some speeches, he said in a post on X.
“It is clear that the PM and his entire brigade have NOT read the two definitive and authoritative books on the national song and the national anthem – written by two of India’s finest historians, in the true sense of that term,” Ramesh said and shared the screenshot of the cover pages of Rudrangshu Mukherjee’s ‘Song of India: A Study of the National Anthem’ and Sabyasachi Bhattacharya’s ‘Vande Materam’.
“It is too much to expect that they would do so even after being thoroughly bruised and exposed for their lies,” the Congress leader said.
Earlier, Ramesh cited historian Sugata Bose’s remarks that it was on Rabindranath Tagore’s advice that the party decided in 1937 that only the first part of Vande Mataram would be sung at national meetings, and said these comments “further expose” Prime Minister Modi.
While the Lok Sabha held the debate on 150 years of Vande Mataram on Monday, Rajya Sabha debated on it for two days — Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Opposition on Wednesday accused BJP leaders of distorting history, with Ramesh saying that the whole aim of the debate on 150 years of Vande Mataram was to malign first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and insult freedom fighters, including Rabindranath Tagore.
On Monday, Modi tore into the Congress, alleging that Nehru betrayed “Vande Mataram” by bowing to Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s opposition to the national song that led to it being fragmented and pandering to his communal concerns, putting India on the path of appeasement politics.
The debate on the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram saw the treasury and opposition members locked in a verbal duel on a host of issues, including nationalism, in both Houses.