Congress’s anti-Vande Mataram stance comes to the fore, Sonia-Kharge stops full version of ‘Vande Mataram’ in party office
By Our Correspondent
Agartala, August 15, 2026
The clueless national leadership of Congress seems bent upon pursuing a political course and optics even at the risk of hurting national sentiments only to appease the minority vote bank. Not contented by subversion of the monsoon session of parliament, the party possibly thought it prudent to brazen out its toxic agenda with another display of macular initiative to hurt sentiments.
The spectacle was enacted this morning in the Congress’s national headquarter at Delhi’s Akbar road. Since it is the 80th independence day celebration today the party stalwarts gathered in the headquarter and a band party comprising party faithfuls commenced the programme by singing in chorus the ‘Vande Mataram’ hymn but as they started singing the third stanza of the hymn Madam Sonia Gandhi was seen gesticulating in protest . The party’s notional president Mallikarjun Kharge took the cue and stopped the singers midway so that they did not complete singing the third stanza. A prominent national TV channel which telecast the programme explained that Madam Sonia had objected because singing the third stanza or the complete song is against the Congress’s declared policy . It was the pre-independence Congress that had cut short the ‘Vande Mataram’ to appease the RDX vote bank with sage advice of M.A.K.Azad whose suggestion had been sought by super-secular Pandit Nehru. This comes in the wake of the recent passage of an act in parliament by the NDA government making singing the full version of ‘Vande Mataram’ mandatory.
In another bizarre twist to the ongoing farces being enacted by the Congress leadership, LOP Rahul Gandhi and party president and Rajya Sabha leader Mallikarjun Kharge remained conspicuously absent from the official independence day programme held at the Red Fort this morning. Perhaps the duo preferred aloofness from listening to the speech of prime minister Narendra Modi who now stands tall over the dynasty. A bizarre phenomenon indeed !
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