Union Home Minister Amit Shah launched a searing counter-attack in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, sharply rebuking Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s allegation that the government’s proposed discussion on the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram was a cynical electoral ploy aimed at the upcoming West Bengal Assembly polls.

Dismissing the charge as an attempt to diminish the national song’s universal glory, Shah asserted that Vande Mataram transcends regional boundaries and electoral cycles. “Some members feel this discussion is happening because Bengal elections are near. They want to confine Vande Mataram to electoral arithmetic. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay may have been born in Bengal, but Vande Mataram belongs to every Indian freedom fighter who whispered it in underground meetings abroad and to every soldier who breathes his last uttering these sacred words on the border,” the Home Minister declared.

In a direct historical indictment, Shah accused India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of initiating appeasement politics by truncating Vande Mataram to only two stanzas on its 50th anniversary, claiming this very policy of appeasement ultimately led to the Partition of India. “Many of us firmly believe that had Vande Mataram not been split for appeasement, Partition might never have happened,” he stated, adding that on its centenary under Indira Gandhi’s regime, those who raised the slogan were imprisoned during the Emergency.

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Shah challenged the Congress to introspect on its own legacy, pointing out that the opposition was free to raise any issue if it allowed Parliament to function smoothly. “We do not run away from debates. We have nothing to hide. Let the House run, every burning issue will be discussed,” he said, turning Priyanka Gandhi’s accusation of diverting attention from present challenges back on the opposition.

The heated exchange began a day earlier when Priyanka Gandhi questioned the timing of the Vande Mataram discussion after 75 years of Independence, alleging the government was deliberately keeping the nation trapped in the past. In immediate rebuttal, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge opened his response by chanting Vande Mataram and reminded the treasury benches that it was the Congress which transformed the song into the rallying cry of the freedom movement and institutionalised its singing at party sessions long before others.

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