Fresh Vande Mataram row strikes jarring note

Maya accuses BJP of hounding her party’s mayor during ceremony in which BJP, BSP stood divided on singing national song

LUCKNOW/MEERUT: A fresh political controversy erupted in Uttar Pradesh with former chief minister Mayawati accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of hounding her party’s Dalit mayor during the Tuesday’s oath taking ceremony in which the BJP and the BSP stood divided on singing Vande Mataram, the national song.

Sunita Verma, the Meerut mayor belonging to the BSP, had refused to sing Vande Mataram during the ceremony. Her refusal angered the BJP corporators who started singing the national song in chorus. This was followed by chants of ‘Jai Sri Ram’. The BSP corporators, who were outnumbered by those of the BJP, retaliated with ‘Jai Bhim’, their party’s slogan. Though the BJP failed to get its mayor elected in Meerut, its corporators outnumber those of the BSP. There 38 BJP corporators against 28 of the BSP in the 90-member corporation.

The Congress and the Samajwadi Party hardly have any presence in the Meerut Municipal Corporation, where independents stood third after the BJP and the BSP.

Some tension between the BSP and the BJP was also reported from the Aligarh Municipal Corporation where also the BSP defeated the BJP for the mayor’s post.

But Meerut was the place where the major controversy erupted. With numbers on their side, the BJP corporators were angry at Verma’s announcement

that she would reverse her predecessor Harikant Ahluwalia’s decision to make singing of the national song compulsory in the corporation.

The BJP corporators started singing Vande Mataram during the oath taking ceremony even as the BSP mayor remained seated. “We respect the constitution but the manner in which the BJP tried to create chaos during the oath taking ceremony was most reprehensible,” Mayawati said. The Bahujan Samaj Party is likely to take up the issue during the winter session of the Uttar Pradesh assembly beginning Thursday.

The latest controversy could spice up the political war between the BJP and the BSP ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Yogesh Verma, a former BSP lawmaker and husband of the Meerut mayor, defended his wife’s decision not to sing Vande Mataram. He said in future too the proceedings of the corporation would be carried on as per the constitution. Mayawati asked the government to explain if singing Vande Mataram was compulsory under the constitution.

Vande Mataram, penned by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, has been accorded the status of national song, but its singing isn’t mandatory under the constitution. The BJP has always been in favour of singing the national song. A section of the Muslims have cited religious grounds to oppose certain passages of it.

In fact, seven Muslim corporators in the previous Meerut civic body had defied the orders of the then mayor on singing it and had been suspended.

“What’s wrong with Vande Mataram? Mayawati and her party must make it clear if they have any problem with singing the song in praise of our motherland. We are proud of our cadre who sang it,” UP BJP general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak said.