A day after the Congress decided to sing only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram at its programmes, Union Home Minister Amit Shah launched a scathing attack on the party, calling its decision “astonishing” and “anti-national”.

He said the Congress Working Committee decision only confirmed its “policy of vote-bank appeasement” and was a violation of the law enacted by Parliament on the rendition of the full national song.

Posting a video clip on X in which he is seen speaking to news agency ANI, Shah said, “The Congress Working Committee has taken an astonishing and anti-national decision. Following their 1937 resolution, they have decided to sing only two stanzas of the great song Vande Mataram. I want to remind the entire country that in 1937, the Congress, for the sake of Muslim appeasement, laid the foundation for the partition of the country by breaking Vande Mataram into two parts. From there, the two-nation theory gained strength and eventually, the country was partitioned and Pakistan was born.”

“In the 150th year of Vande Mataram’s composition, the Narendra Modi government has corrected that historic mistake, and tried to strengthen national integration by singing the entire song, the immortal work of Bankim Babu. The decision to sing it in full in all government functions has been given legal form as well.”

Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi, Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi at the CWC meeting in New Delhi, Wednesday.

“Yesterday, the Congress decided to violate it. This decision by the Congress only confirms its extreme policy of appeasement. For vote bank appeasement, they have not only insulted the immortal work of the late Bankim Babu, but also millions of martyrs who went to the gallows for the country’s independence while chanting Vande Mataram, and spent many years in jail,” he said.

“Today, the Congress is accepting its party resolution of 1937 and rejecting the Act of Parliament. I am quite astonished that under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi, the Congress is once again vigorously promoting the politics of appeasement in this country. I want to appeal to the people of this country. Once this country made the mistake of letting Vande Mataram be divided into two parts, and we suffered grave consequences,” he said.

“Now the people of the country should unite and raise their voices against this decision of the Congress, that politics of appeasement will no longer work in this country. This is a free country. Eighty years after independence, the people of this country will not tolerate any opposition to what the Narendra Modi government has corrected, regarding the decision Congress made in 1937. The BJP strongly condemns this decision of the Congress, and we will vigorously oppose it among the public and in legislative assemblies,” Shah said.

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BJP president Nitin Nabin accused the Congress of having formalised its “insult” of the national song “into a resolution”.

Referring to the row over what the BJP claimed was a bid by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi to stop the full rendition of Vande Mataram at the Congress headquarters on Independence Day, Nabin, in a post on X, said, “When, just a few days ago, this same insult had been exposed in the conduct of an individual, the Congress had dismissed it as a coincidence. Today, that very insult has become the Congress’s policy. This insult to the sacred invocation of ‘Bharat Mata’ is contempt for those thousands of martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the nation, keeping this very song alive in their consciousness.”

“This is not merely a political defence, but proof of the hunger for that vote bank before which the Congress has repeatedly pawned the nation’s self-respect. The Congress has now become the new Muslim League of today,” he said.