BJP on a song over vande faux pas

NEW DELHI: The BJP on Monday stepped up its attack against the UPA government, and the Congress, on the flip-flop on the centenary celebrations of the adoption of Vande Mataram as the national song, and brandished copies of the gazette published by the government to put the ruling combine in the dock.

The gazette, published by the government on May 2, notifies the constitution of a 68-member “national committee”, headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to chalk out programmes for, among other things, the centenary celebrations of the adoption of Vande Mataram as the national song.

The party also poked fun at the Congress’ decision to hold year-long celebrations to mark the 100th anniversary of the launch of ‘satyagraha’, describing the move as an attempt by the ruling party to make amends for its goof-up on the Vande Mataram issue.

“Nationalistic credentials are not earned by compensatory tokenism,” asserted BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad, while terming the satyagraha proposal as one borne out of the realisation by the Congress leadership that it may have earned the displeasure of the people by its self-goal on the Vande Mataram rendition.

The party has now made plans to launch a nationwide campaign on the issue from September 25 “to educate the new generation about the background of the national song, and patriotic fervour that it ignited during the freedom movement and to expose the Congress”.

Determined to keep the subject in the headlines in an attempt to step up the heat on the Congress and its president Sonia Gandhi, the BJP is going all out to convert the Vande Mataram controversy into a symbol of the principal ruling party’s efforts to keep a safe distance from Hinduism-related issues to reclaim the backing of the Muslims.

“To that extent, the Vande Mataram is only a brand. On its own, it cannot lead to a consolidation of the Hindu votes. But when juxtaposed against the UPA government’s failures on the internal security front, and its inability to stop the jehadis from carrying out their attacks at will, it becomes a powerful tool,” a senior BJP leader argued.

Ayodhya, Bangalore, Varanasi, New Delhi, Mumbai and, now, Malegaon — the party BJP feels that the UPA government’s “soft-on-terrorism” image can only embolden the jehadis into intensifying their attacks across the country without inviting any real retaliatory action.

“People are already talking about the UPA government’s track-record on the internal security front. Our job is to keep banging away at this report-card,” the BJP leader said.