Mangaluru: Congress and BJP leaders in Dakshina Kannada traded barbs over the Vande Mataram controversy, with the Congress accusing the BJP of politicising the song and the BJP terming the Congress stand proof of its “intellectual bankruptcy”.District Congress Committee president Harish Kumar said the Congress had sung Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Vande Mataram with respect since the freedom struggle and continues to do so at party sessions, programmes and offices.“However, the BJP stepping forward to politicise the song is condemnable,” he said.Kumar challenged the RSS and BJP to clarify their own position on Vande Mataram before lecturing the Congress.“Is Vande Mataram sung in RSS offices? If the RSS and BJP truly respect the tricolour, let them say when they began regularly hoisting it at the RSS headquarters,” he said.Mangaluru City South MLA D Vedavyas Kamath hit back, saying the Congress decision to sing only two stanzas of Vande Mataram and oppose a parliamentary law for “appeasement politics” reflected its “anti-national mindset and intellectual bankruptcy”.“Vande Mataram is not just a song. It is a sacred mantra chanted by lakhs of freedom fighters even as they went to the gallows. Opposing it for vote-bank politics is shameful,” Kamath said.He also accused the Congress of having censored Vande Mataram before Independence for appeasement and said it was condemnable that the party was again challenging “the law and sovereignty of the country” despite the Narendra Modi-led govt’s efforts to correct historical mistakes.
