BJP weaponising 'Vande Mataram' to push polarisation agenda: Maharashtra Cong leader
Mumbai (PTI): The Maharashtra Congress on Friday accused the BJP of manufacturing an "unfortunate and needless" controversy over 'Vande Mataram' in Maharashtra.
The opposition party's spokesperson Sachin Sawant claimed the Bharatiya Janata Party was using the national song to target minority legislators and push its "polarisation agenda".
Sawant pointed out that BJP workers had held a 'Vande Mataram' singing event outside the offices of Congress MLAs Aslam Shaikh and Amin Patel earlier this week in a "clear attempt to intimidate and malign elected representatives from the minority community".
"The BJP is trying to create communal fault lines by weaponising Vande Mataram," Sawant claimed.
He said there was a state government's directive asking Mantralaya officials to answer phone calls with 'Vande Mataram'.
"This circular has nothing to do with administration and everything to do with theatrics. Governance has collapsed, so they are resorting to symbolic nationalism," Sawant alleged.
On November 24, the Rajya Sabha secretariat reminded members not to use slogans like 'Vande Mataram' and 'Jai Hind' inside or outside the House, citing it as a breach of parliamentary etiquette.
Referring to it, Sawant said the BJP was contradicting its own stance.
"At one place they use Vande Mataram to divide people, and in Parliament they impose restrictions on the same slogans. What explains this hypocrisy? Those who did not have the courage to utter Vande Mataram during British rule have now imposed curbs on the slogan inside the temple of democracy," Sawant asserted.
This is the height of BJP's double standards and hollow nationalism, he said and sought a response from the BJP's Maharashtra leadership.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
