Daijiworld Media Network - Thiruvananthapuram

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 15: Kerala Opposition Leader Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday accused the Congress of embracing a "soft Hindutva" line after the party decided to sing the full version of Vande Mataram at the AICC headquarters and at official Independence Day functions in Congress-ruled Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh and Telangana.

In a sharply worded social media post, Vijayan said the Congress had once again exposed its political commitments and alleged that the party was moving away from India's secular nationalist tradition towards the Hindutva agenda of the RSS.

The controversy has also acquired a Kerala dimension, with the full version of Vande Mataram being rendered at an official function at the State Forest Department headquarters.

Political observers noted that the song was heard at venues where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has an established presence in Kerala.

At the Lok Bhavan, Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar led from the front by singing Vande Mataram during the Independence Day function.

Vijayan recalled that the Congress Working Committee had decided in 1937 that, in view of the religious imagery in the song, only its first two stanzas should be sung at platforms of the national movement.

He said that even when the Constituent Assembly accorded Vande Mataram the status of the national song in 1950, the first two stanzas were intended for such use.

The Congress, he alleged, was now discarding its own secular legacy by opting to sing the complete version.

Vijayan also referred to the Supreme Court's March 2026 ruling in the Mohammed Saeed Noori case, which he said made it clear that singing Vande Mataram at government functions was not mandatory.

He argued that there was no legal obligation to sing the song and that failure to do so was not a punishable offence under the Centre's amended law.

Against this backdrop, Vijayan described the full rendition of the song at official functions as an attempt to appease the RSS and accused the Congress of betraying India's secular society.

He further accused the Congress of adopting Sangh Parivar positions in an attempt to compete with majoritarian politics.

"The latest evidence is that the Congress has become the B team of the RSS," Vijayan said.

The remarks add another layer to the increasingly sharp political contest between the Congress-led government and the Left in Kerala, with Vande Mataram emerging as an unexpected flashpoint around Independence Day.