Date:08/09/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/09/08/stories/2006090809701200.htm

National

BJP assails Sonia's absence

Neena Vyas

"She stayed away due to votebank politics when Vande Mataram was sung"

DEHRA DUN: The Bharatiya Janata Party's bid to make the singing of Vande Mataram a hot political issue received an unexpected boost when news came that Congress president Sonia Gandhi was not present at an All-India Congress Committee function in New Delhi where the song was sung.

BJP president Rajnath Singh referred to her absence in his opening remarks at the three-day national executive session that started here on Thursday.

He alleged that she made a "conscious decision" to stay away in the interest of "votebank politics."

Earlier, after a meeting of the BJP general secretaries ahead of the start of the party conclave, the BJP announced that a five-member committee had been set up to propagate Vande Mataram throughout the country.

Venkaiah Naidu and Murli Manohar Joshi, criticised Ms. Gandhi's non-participation.

While Mr. Naidu dismissed it as "one more instance of votebank politics," Mr. Joshi said that it was "unacceptable". The other four members of the committee are Arun Jaitley, Sanjay Joshi, Anant Kumar and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

On Wednesday evening, the BJP doused attempts by the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee chief Avtar Singh Makkar to start a fire on the issue among Sikhs.

Made to retract

After reports that he had directed that Sikh children in schools run by the SGPC would not sing the national song and that Akalis would not be a party to propagating one religion, the BJP got in touch with him to made him retract his statement.

BJP deputy leader in the Lok Sabha V.K. Malhotra told The Hindu that the party got in touch with Mr. Makkar through Akali leaders S.S. Dhindsa and Tarlochan Singh.

"We conveyed to the Akalis that if the SGPC remained firm in opposing Vande Mataram, it would unite all Hindus behind Amrinder Singh [Punjab Chief Minister] and this would adversely affect the poll prospects in Punjab," he said.

The statement was retracted and a fresh one issued, which said the SGPC had no objection whatsoever to Vande Mataram.

However, the Akali politics would dictate that the Vande Mataram controversy is not kept alive, those familiar with the Punjab politics here said.

Separately, the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, indicated that the controversy should end.

Some BJP leaders are of the view that the controversy cannot be exploited further to yield positive election results. But there is one section that feels Vande Mataram could be fruitfully added to the BJP's Hindutva agenda.