Earlier, Rajasthan Police detained a group of college students in Alwar ahead of Shah's public programme as they had been planning to hold a protest

Updated on: Aug 16, 2026, 13:30:16 IST

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The Congress insulted Vande Mataram on Independence Day, and should apologise to the people, Union home minister Amit Shah said at a rally in Chittorgarh, Rajasthan, on Sunday, August 16.

“The Congress forgot Vande Mataram out of greed for vote banks,” Shah alleged.

This came as leaders from Shah's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lodged a formal complaint against Congress leader Sonia Gandhi at the Urwa police station in Karnataka on Sunday, following a controversy during the recitation of the national song Vande Mataram at the Congress headquarters in New Delhi on Independence Day.

The controversy erupted after visuals from the Independence Day programme at the Congress headquarters showed senior party leaders speaking among themselves while Vande Mataram was being recited. BJP leaders have criticised their conduct, alleging that it amounted to disrespect towards the National Song.

However, the Congress asserted that Sonia Gandhi's actions had nothing to do with the national song played at the venue. The party maintained that she was merely trying to ensure that the correct arrangements for Vande Mataram were sung properly in the event.

Singing Vande Mataram in full has been mandated by new rules and a recently-passed law by the Narendra Modi government.

BJP leaders said the Centre has shown respect to Bengal’s literary icon Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay whose 1870’s composition in Sanskritised Bengali became the driving spirit of the freedom movement. Congress' and other parties' leader, as well as some academicians, on the other hand, have argued that the Constituent Assembly adopted only the first two stanzas as the national song on January 24, 1950, because the latter stanzas, which are devoted to idol worship and Hindu goddesses, went against the Constitution’s secular spirit.

Action in Alwar ahead of Shah's event

Earlier, Rajasthan Police detained a group of college students in Alwar ahead of Shah's public programme as they had been planning to hold a protest and show black flags to him.

Besides his rally at Chittorgarh, Shah, accompanied by Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma, is scheduled to address a public meeting at Vijay Nagar Ground in Alwar and launch development projects worth ₹6,279 crore across the state, including ₹783 crore worth of projects in Alwar district.

Police sources said the students were taken into custody before a proposed protest at RR College, news agency PTI reported.

The protesters had planned to raise the issue of the lathi-charge on students at Jantar Mantar in Delhi during the Cockroach Janta Party protest in July. Other issues on their list were the poor condition of roads, the alleged Matsya scam (corruption in the fisheries department) and the demand for restoration of student union elections in Rajasthan, the sources further told PTI.

The Alwar detentions come against the backdrop of a wider pattern of preventive detentions ahead of Shah's public engagements in recent weeks, as well as a sustained Opposition demand for the home minister's resignation over the police action against student protesters in the national capital in July.

Pattern of detentions

In Pune on August 1, several office-bearers of the Maharashtra Youth Congress and Pune City Congress were taken into custody shortly after midnight ahead of Shah and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval's visit to the city. The Youth Congress alleged its leaders were held for nearly 16 hours and that police seized their mobile phones during the detention.

Separately in Pune the same day, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Vasant More was detained after announcing he would stage a protest during Shah's visit. Police said the detention was preventive and not linked to any criminal case, and was carried out to avoid disruption to the visit and an award ceremony for Doval.

The July 20 police action cited by the Alwar protesters relates to the student-led protest movement at Jantar Mantar over the NEET-UG paper leak, which had drawn activists under banners including the All India Students Association and the Cockroach Janta Party.

Those protests led to the resignation of senior BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhanas education minister in PM Narendra Modi's government.

Student groups have since alleged that detentions of activists have continued despite assurances from the government that no punitive action would follow the protests' conclusion.

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