Chennai: BJP would organise a nationwide campaign on Vande Mataram from September 25, aimed at exposing "pseudo-secularism and vote bank politics and also rekindling the spirit of nationalism in the entire country".
"BJP will launch a nationwide campaign to expose the opportunism and ideological bankruptcy of the Congress party, which is today apologetic of defending the sacred symbols of the freedom struggle", senior leader M Venkaiah Naidu said.
"The spirit of Vande Mataram is the real answer to terrorism and separatism", he told reporters in Chennai while announcing the three-phased campaign.
Attacking the Congress, he said party General Secretary Janardan Dwivedi's statement that the government had committed an error in choosing September 7 for singing Vande Mataram "just shows how callous and irresponsible is its(Cong) attitude towards something as sacred as the National Song".
Venkaiah asked if September 7 was not historically important then why "their (UPA) government and the committee headed by the Prime Minister decided to conclude the centenary on that day? Did they want to send a message that the country is having an ignorant PM?", he asked.
He said the real issue was not about the date but it was a "well orchestrated campaign against Vande Mataram", launched by a few people and some Marxist intellectuals, following which both the Congress and the UPA government at the Centre developed cold feet.
In the face of "this vicious" campaign, "which projected Vande Mataram as a Hindu song and not a national song", Congress leadership felt that it was a "political hot potato" that should not be touched, or "else it will lose its minority votes", he said.
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