The Congress had committed the unpardonable blunder of censoring the National Song Vande Mataram facilitating in that process the Partion of India, BJP president Amit Shah said on Wednesday.
Shah who had come to Bengal in a two-day visit made the statement while delivering the Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay Memorial lecture organised by Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Foundation.
The Congress “made the mistake of censoring the National Song Vande Mataram to just stanzas instead of the whole song,” Shah said on the 180th birth anniversary of India’s earliest novelist of the modern era.
Had the Congress not committed the unpardonable blunder the Partion of India could have been avoided, Shah said describing Bankim Chandra’s Anand Math and his immortal lines of Vande Mataram as one of the finest examples and earliest endeavours to project a United India, “which could not have been possible had he not been endowed with the blessing of the Goddess.” Vande Mataram was the manifestation of Indian nationalist tradition, he said, adding the song belonged to all Indians irrespective of caste and religion.
“Vande Mataram cannot be associated with any religion. But the Congress which always followed the appeasement policy brought religion into it by censoring the song,” the BJP president said.
It seemed that the BJP was sparing no Bengali personality in its bid to grab power, CPI(M)’s Sujan Chakrabarty said. “They did it with Swami Vivekananda, Syama Prasad and not they are doing it with Bankim Chandra by using his name to garner votes,” he said.
No party other than the BJP has denigrated Bengali culture like BJP which is why the intellectuals are boycotting them outright, said Congress’ Manoj Chakrabarty. Incidentally most Bengali intellectuals save a couple of them like writer Buddhadeb Guha on Wednesday showed up at the Birla Sabha Ghar where the Bankim Chandra Memorial lecture was to be delivered.