Shah labels Congress' Vande Mataram stance 'anti-national'

A political controversy intensified on Thursday, August 20, 2026, as Union Home Minister Amit Shah launched a sharp attack on the Congress party, labeling its decision to sing only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram as "antinational" and driven by appeasement politics. The clash erupted after the Congress Working Committee (CWC) on Wednesday, August 19, resolved to adhere to its own 1937 resolution, which established that only the opening two stanzas of the national song would be performed at all party events. The decision follows days of BJP accusations that senior Congress leaders disrespectfully disrupted the song's rendition during Independence Day celebrations at the party's New Delhi headquarters on August 15.

Shah, speaking in Mahabalipuram, accused the Congress of repeating a historic error for "vote bank appeasement." He alleged that the 1937 decision to limit the song was a foundational step that strengthened the "two-nation theory" and ultimately contributed to the Partition of India. "Yesterday, the Congress Party Working Committee took a surprising and antinational decision," Shah stated, adding that the BJP-led government had corrected this historical wrong by...