Amit Shah says Congress’s decision on rendering first two stanzas of Vande Mataram is ‘anti-national’

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday (August 20, 2026) launched a sharp attack on the Congress, alleging that its decision to render only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram reflected appeasement politics, disrespected martyrs and undermined national unity.

In a statement to the media, Mr. Shah termed the Congress Working Committee’s move on Wednesday (August 19, 2026) to feature only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram at party functions, in line with the All India Congress Committee resolution of 1937, as “anti-national”.

“I want to remind the entire country that in 1937, the Congress party, for the sake of Muslim appeasement, split Vande Mataram into two pieces, laying the foundation for the country’s Partition, and from there, the two-nation theory gained strength. Ultimately, the country was partitioned, and Pakistan was born,” Mr. Shah said.

The “historic mistake” was corrected in the 150th year of the emergence of the National Song by the Narendra Modi government, in an effort to “strengthen national integration by singing Bankim babu’s (Bankim Chandra Chatterjee) immortal creation in full”. “A decision was made to sing it completely in all government programmes, and this decision has also been given legal backing,” the Minister said.

The Congress chose to disregard the initiative, Mr. Shah said, confirming its “extreme policy of appeasement”. “For the sake of vote banks, they have not only disrespected Bankim babu’s immortal creation but also insulted those millions of martyrs who went to the gallows for the country’s freedom while chanting the slogan of Vande Mataram,” he said.

“Today, the Congress is adhering to its 1937 resolution and rejecting the Parliament’s Act. Under Rahul Gandhi’s leadership, the party is once again vigorously advancing the politics of appeasement,” Mr. Shah said.

He appealed to the people of the country to remember the serious consequences of the country’s past “mistake of allowing Vande Mataram to be divided into two parts” and urged them to unite against the Congress party’s decision, “making it clear that the politics of appeasement will no longer be tolerated”. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said it would forcefully oppose the Congress’s decision before the people as well as in the legislative Houses.

“When, just a few days ago, this same insult had been exposed in the conduct of an individual, the Congress had dismissed it as a coincidence. Today, that very insult has become the Congress’s policy,” BJP president Nitin Nabin said on X, in an apparent reference to a gesture by Congress leader Sonia Gandhi during a rendition of Vande Mataram at the Congress headquarters on August 15, 2026.

Describing the Congress Working Committee’s decision as an affront to the sacred invocation of “Bharat Mata”, Mr. Nabin said the Congress had become “the new Muslim League of today”. It was proof of the “hunger for that vote bank before which the Congress has repeatedly pawned the nation’s self-respect,” he said.