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Shashi Tharoor breaks silence on Vande Mataram row: ‘We will all stand up for the entire thing if…’
Shashi Tharoor said the Congress is following the existing practice when it comes to its party functions.
Amid the ongoing Congress vs BJP face-off over Vande Mataram, India's national song, MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday clarified the party's position saying it has been playing one stanza of the national anthem and two verses of Vande Mataram since 1937.
"I think the position is very clear that the Congress is following the existing practice when it comes to Congress party functions. I think if there is a national or government function, we will all stand up for the whole for the entire thing. It depends on what is being played. But in our party, our position is that since 1937, we've been playing only one stanza of the national anthem and two verses of Vande Mataram. And that will remain our existing position," Tharoor was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
BJP's 10-point resolution on Vande Mataram
This comes amid the Bharatiya Janata Party passing a 10-point resolution on the honour and historic legacy of Vande Mataram. The party said it will lead a nationwide campaign to raise awareness around the history and significance of the national song.
Deep Dive
The party resolved to highlight Mahatma Gandhi’s description of Vande Mataram as an “anti-imperialist cry” linked to the “purest national spirit” and oppose attempts to subject the National Song to “communal pressure, political appeasement or narrow vote-bank considerations”.
It strongly condemned the Congress Working Committee's decision taken on August 19 to re-adopt its 1937 resolution that restricts the singing of Vande Mataram to only its first two stanzas at Congress programmes.
The resolution stated that the legacy of the National Song cannot be “reduced to the calculations of contemporary vote-bank politics.”
A statement issued by the party said it regards Vande Mataram as the National Song of Bharat, an expression of reverence for Bharat Mata, a mantra of the freedom struggle and an immortal symbol of India’s national consciousness.
The party resolved to “uphold the honour, dignity, legacy and national status of the complete Vande Mataram as the National Song of Bharat and as an immortal symbol of India’s national consciousness and freedom struggle… To affirm the constitutional and statutory status of Vande Mataram as established by the Constituent Assembly’s 1950 pronouncement and reinforced by Parliament’s 2026 amendment extending statutory protection to the National Song equivalent to that accorded to the National Anthem,” the resolution said.
Lashing out at the Congress for refusing to sing all stanzas of the National Song, the BJP said it will reject every attempt to subordinate the National Song to communal pressure, political appeasement, or narrow vote-bank considerations.
Congress on Vande Mataram row
The CWC earlier decided to abide by its 1937 resolution on Vande Mataram and sing only two stanzas of the National Song, instead of its full rendition, at all party events.
“…To remind the Congress that a resolution of its Working Committee cannot override the constitutional institutions or laws of the Republic of India, and that a political compromise of 1937 cannot be elevated above the constitutional settlement of 1950 and legislation enacted by Parliament in 2026….To expose before the people of Bharat the historical and political context in which the truncation of Vande Mataram took place, including the objections raised by the Muslim League and the subsequent politics of communal and separatist demands,” the resolution said.
