THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Amid the controversy over ‘Vande Mataram’, Kerala became the only Congress-ruled state in the country to omit the national song from its official Independence Day function on Saturday, despite a directive from the Centre to have the full six-stanza version sung as part of the celebrations. Only the national anthem was sung at the event attended by Chief Minister V D Satheesan in the state capital.
Top sources in the state government maintained that the Centre’s directive was not mandatory and that the state had every right not to comply with it. “Though the decision would not invite any legal consequences, it would strain Centre-state relations,” a top government official said. Meanwhile, the Lok Bhavan, where the governor’s customary ‘At Home’ function on Independence Day featured a full rendition of ‘Vande Mataram’, has decided not to take up the matter with the Centre.
“However, the disregard of the central directive will be mentioned in the customary report to the Union government,” a Lok Bhavan official said.
Notably, despite the state government omitting the song from its official function, Vande Mataram was sung at the I-Day programme of the BJP-ruled Thiruvananthapuram municipal corporation.
The controversy surrounding the national song erupted after Chief Secretary Bishwanath Sinha forwarded a communication from the Centre to the general education and local self-government departments, directing them to have the full version of ‘Vande Mataram’ sung as part of the ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ campaign.
Govt’s decision an insult to Vande Mataram: BJP
Amid protests by the Opposition LDF, which accused the UDF government of toeing the Sangh Parivar line, the chief minister had said the government’s stand would be made clear at the Independence Day celebrations.
Meanwhile, the state BJP hit out at the UDF government over its decision. Calling it an “unforgivable insult” to ‘Vande Mataram’, BJP state president Rajeev Chandrasekhar said the “appeasement politics” of the government posed a serious threat to Kerala and national unity. “Satheesan and the Congress do not run Kerala. They take orders not from the Constitution and the law of the land, but from the radical dictates of Jamaat-e-Islami and the IUML,” Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a post on X.
He also pointed out that governments across the country, including Congress governments in Karnataka, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh, and Congress-backed governments in Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir, had sung the full version of the national song.
BJP state general secretary S Suresh alleged that Satheesan was not guided by the Congress’s culture or obligations, but by the traditions of Jamaat-e-Islami and the Muslim League. He said the BJP would explore legal and political options against the UDF’s decision to omit the national song.
