NEW DELHI: Trinamool Congress claimed on Monday that the govt had pushed for a discussion on ‘Vande Mataram’ in the Parliament only with an eye on West Bengal elections, calling BJP’s commitment to the national song a “badly scripted comedy”.With BJP making a determined bid to unseat CM Mamata Banerjee, TMC MPs Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar and Mahua Moitra slammed the party for its “divisive” politics and for being removed from the state’s soul, while SP’s Akhilesh Yadav said BJP members are not “rashtrawadi” (nationalists) but “rashtra vivadi” (those who stoke dispute) and follow the British in dividing society.Praising the national song, Yadav said it had awakened millions and energised and unified the struggle against the British. BJP wants to own everything, including the icons who do not belong to it, he said. “Going by their comments and speeches, it appears the song has been created by them,” he said. Dastidar accused PM of insulting Bankim Chandra Chatterjee by referring to him as “Bankim da”, giving the impression that “he was having a casual conversation with the literary icon at a local tea shop”. Modi had switched to “Bankim babu” after another TMC MP, Saugata Roy, objected to it during his speech. Dastidar said Bengalis will not tolerate the belittling of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, just as they had not tolerated the disrespect shown to Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar when his bust was vandalised. In her speech, Moitra said the irony of a discussion on the song is not lost on anyone when the opposition is preve-nted from raising pressing issues of national importance, like states being starved of funds due to them, pollution crisis, and people in large nu-mbers being subjected to ma-ss “disenfranchisement”.
