Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath speaks during the winter session of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly in Lucknow on December 22, 2025. | Photo credit: PTI
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Monday (Dec 22, 2025) that the Congress – whose platform first heard Vande Mataram – had “strangled the Constitution” by imposing a state of emergency in the country during the national anthem’s centenary celebrations.
Opening the discussion on Vande Mataram in the state assembly on the second day of the winter session, Mr. Adityanath said, “When the occasion of the centenary of Vande Mataram came, the same Congress from whose platform Vande Mataram was first sounded, imposed emergency in the country in 1975 and strangled the constitution.”
The Chief Minister said that respect for Vande Mataram is not just an emotional expression. “It also inculcates in all of us a sense of our national responsibilities towards constitutional values,” he said.
Calling the song “a symbol of the nation’s soul, struggle and determination”, Mr Adityanath said: “When Vande Mataram celebrated its silver jubilee, the country was still under British rule.”
He said the song was composed at a time when the British government, reeling from the First War of Independence, reached the height of repression and atrocities and Indians were subjected to severe hardships.
At that time, the Congress served as a platform to advance the freedom struggle, the House leader said. “In 1896, Rabindranath Tagore first lent his voice to Vande Mataram at a Congress session and it became a mantra for the entire nation,” he said.
However, Mr. Adityanath said, “When the centenary of Vande Mataram came, the same Congress imposed Emergency and strangled the Constitution.”
He claimed that the Congress followed a policy of appeasement and added that as long as Mohammad Ali Jinnah was in the Congress, Vande Mataram was not the deciding point of the dispute.
“Once Jinnah left the Congress, he made it a tool of the Muslim League and deliberately gave the song a general colour. The song remained the same but the program changed,” the chief minister said.
“On October 15, 1937, from this very Lucknow, Muhammad Ali Jinnah raised a slogan against Vande Mataram and at that time Pandit Nehru was the Congress president. On October 20, 1937, Nehru wrote a letter to Subhas Chandra Bose that his background was disturbing to Muslims,” he added.
He added that the country is moving towards fulfilling the dream of immortal composer Vande Mataram Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.
Mr Adityanath said that as part of a series of programs launched from New Delhi to mark 150 years of Vande Mataram under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “the Uttar Pradesh Assembly is perhaps the first legislature to have such a detailed discussion on the national song”.
Published – 22 Dec 2025 18:37 IST
