Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge slammed Modi and the BJP government for prioritising a debate on 'Vande Mataram' rather than the issues plaguing the country and the common man. He cited PM Narendra Modi's comment when he was the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, on the weakening rupee. Kharge spoke right after Home Minister Amit Shah on December 9, who accused the Congress party of appeasement politics for using only two stanzas of the poem by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.
The Congress MP stated that it was a collective call by a slew of leaders, including Jawarlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, and the multi-hyphenated Rabindranath Tagore himself, who composed the tune for the song.