"No RSS leader ever sang Vande Mataram": Congress MP Imran Masood

New Delhi [India], December 8 (ANI): Congress MP Imran Masood on Monday claimed that no RSS leader had ever sung the Vande Mataram, asserting that it was Congress workers who had gone to jail while raising the slogan during the freedom struggle.
Speaking to ANI, Masood also criticised the RSS and BJP for unnecessarily bringing former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru into every conversation.
He said, "Was this song theirs? Which RSS leader sang this, went to jail, and who was raising slogans on the roads? They were all Congress workers. Guru Rabindranath Tagore included two paragraphs in the song, will they speak against him as well?. They tell an incomplete history. They repeat Nehru's name. If Nehru were not there, then they would not have been in the first place. Without Nehru, the country would have been like Somalia. Nehru made the country self-sufficient in food production, fostered a scientific mindset, and laid a blueprint for taking the state forward. It's Nehru's blueprint that has made the country stable, not them."
"They (the BJP) sold what Nehru made. Nehru founded Air India. Now, my ticket was costing up to 70,000 rupees. I did not sleep well last night, and my flight got cancelled. The situation of the common man is dire. Was the song made for the PM? Was Bankim Chandra Chatterjee the ideology of the PM? Guru Golwalkar, Hedgewar, and Savarkar, like other RSS leaders, never sang Vande Mataram, nor did they appreciate Jan Gana Mana or the Flag. Now, they want to sing our song. Please sing then (to BJP)," Masood said.
Meanwhile, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Monday took potshots at the BJP during the discussion in Lok Sabha on 150 years of Vande Mataram, saying the National Song "has always been dear to us, has always been sacred to us, and will always remain sacred to us" and asked if it is "sung in the BJP-RSS sessions or not".
Priyanka Gandhi said the Modi government wants to divert the country's attention from essential public issues and asked for the rationale for debating the National Song, which people deeply revere.
"There are two reasons for the debate on Vande Mataram in the House today. One, elections are coming up in West Bengal. In such a situation, our Prime Minister wants to establish his role, and second, those who fought the freedom struggle and sacrificed for the country -- this government wants an opportunity to level new accusations against them. By doing this, the government wants to divert the country's attention from the essential issues concerning the public," Priyanka Gandhi said.
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi's address to Parliament on Monday, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh launched a strong attack on the Congress, alleging "fragmentation" of Vande Mataram and "appeasement politics".
Addressing the Lok Sabha during the discussion on the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram, Rajnath Singh said that the National Anthem found a place in the national consciousness. Still, the National Song was "marginalised."
He said, "Today, it has to be accepted that the justice that should have been done to Vande Mataram did not happen. National Anthem and National Song were to be given an equal place, but one found a place in the national consciousness, while the other was marginalised. It was treated like an extra. In 1937, Congress split over the same land where Vande Mataram was composed. This was not an injustice to a song, but to the people of independent India."
Further, the Defence Minister emphasised that Vande Mataram will remain the "immortal song of national sentiment." (ANI)