Mani Shankar welcomes CWC resolution on Vande Mataram, Giriraj Singh takes ‘puppet’ jibe
New Delhi, Aug 20 (IANS) After senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar welcomed the Congress Working Committee’s (CWC) resolution on ‘Vande Mataram’, Union Minister Giriraj Singh called the former, a “puppet” and “parrot” of Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi.
A day ago, the CWC resolved to continue following a tradition established through a 1937 CWC decision, under which only the first two stanzas of ‘Vande Mataram’ are recited at Congress events.The decision assumes significance as the Centre has recently made the complete rendition of the national song part of official protocol.
Speaking with IANS earlier in the day, Aiyar said: “I am very happy that yesterday the Congress decided in a firm manner that we will sing only the first two verses of ‘Vande Mataram’. Because in 1937, I believe, it was decided on the advice of gurudev Rabindranath Tagore that we would sing only the first two stanzas. And today, we are following the same path again.”
Responding to it, Giriraj Singh said: “He is a puppet. He is Rahul’s parrot. What Rahul Gandhi teaches him, he will say just that.”
“The people of the country will never forgive and never tolerate…because the ‘Vande Mataram’ carries the soul of our revolutionary ancestors, and contains the culture and law of the land. This ‘Vande Mataram’ will not be affected by your (Congress’) happiness or displeasure. It will be explained to every single person in the country, that Congress is anti-India,” he told IANS.
The Union Minister further said: “The Congress has now been unmasked…Everyone tried to hide the actions of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, and Mallikarjun Kharge on August 15, but the wolf’s skin has come off. And it has come off in their opposition to nation.”
He claimed that all six stanzas of the national song have been sung publicly from the beginning itself and that whatever happened in the middle and even today is “due to pressure from the Muslim League”.
“After all, this Congress is not the one of which Mahatma Gandhi was a part. This is Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi’s Congress,” he remarked.
A controversy erupted over the conduct of senior Congress leaders during the rendition of the national song at the Independence Day event at Indira Bhawan (Congress headquarters) in the national capital.
–IANS
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