Accusing it of “suffering from the same mentality that brought it in alliance with the Muslim League”, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday alleged that Congress was compromising on national interests for its vote-bank politics and providing ideological support to naxalism.

Senior leader and Lok Sabha MP Ravi Shankar Prasad said that following the “embarrassing event” at the Congress headquarters on August 15, where Sonia Gandhi appeared to be opposing the recitation of the entire ‘Vande Mataram’, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had, in Goa, said that only two stanzas were sung at the party event there as well.

“Today, we want to raise a question about the mindset of the entire Congress party. If it indulges in such acts… if it is behaving in this manner with the great national song, then it should please stop its arrogance of claiming to be the sole custodian of India’s freedom movement,” Prasad said.

Underlining that ‘Vande Mataram’ was one of the major songs of India’s freedom struggle and served as a source of inspiration, the senior BJP leader said that the Congress had, in 1936-37, entered into a pact with the Muslim League, and perhaps for this reason, the Muslim League “exerted pressure that only two stanzas should be sung, as the remaining portions hurt their religious sentiments”.

“Subsequently, the members of the Muslim League went to Pakistan, following Muhammad Ali Jinnah, but the first President of India and great freedom fighter, Dr Rajendra Prasad, clearly declared in the Constituent Assembly meeting on January 24, 1950, that ‘Jana Gana Mana’ would be the National Anthem and ‘Vande Mataram’, the national song,” the senior BJP leader highlighted.

“Dr Rajendra Prasad was himself a member of the Congress and was the president of the Constituent Assembly, and later, became the President of India. Then, a new provision was introduced, the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, which was enacted in 1971, under a Congress government and when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister,” Prasad said.

“Mallikarjun Kharge, if you mock the people of the BJP by asking where they were during the freedom movement, we ask him: Was Dr Rajendra Prasad a leader of the freedom movement or not?… Did Dr Rajendra Prasad declare in the Constituent Assembly in 1950 that Vande Mataram was the National Song or not? Then who is Mallikarjun Kharge mocking, and why? The Congress party is still afflicted by the same mindset that characterised its relationship with the Muslim League during the Lucknow Pact of 1936-37,” he added.

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Instead of learning from its mistakes, Prasad said the Congress’ leaders were themselves becoming “symbols of anarchy” and that the party does not merely criticise Prime Minister Narendra Modi but “hates him”.

“It is very unfortunate that the Congress party, going beyond its opposition to the BJP and its hatred towards the Honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi ji, has now also taken a stand against national symbols. Now, the only step left is to stand against the country. We strongly condemn this,” the former Union minister said.