The BJP’s full meeting of national office bearers on Saturday passed a resolution condemning the recent Congress Working Committee resolution to sing only two stanzas of the National Song Vande Mataram.Noting that the complete song represents national consciousness, the BJP stressed that Parliament has now passed a law granting Vande Mataram equal national status on par with the National Anthem, and said singing the full song is befitting its national status.In a detailed statement, BJP president Nitin Nabin said the Bharatiya Janata Party “strongly condemns and unequivocally opposes” the decision taken by the Congress Working Committee on August 19 to reaffirm its 1937 resolution and restrict the singing of Vande Mataram to its first two stanzas at Congress programmes.The resolution said the BJP regards Vande Mataram as the National Song of Bharat, an expression of reverence for Bharat Mata, a mantra of the freedom struggle and an immortal symbol of India’s national consciousness.The resolution pledged to strongly condemn and unequivocally oppose the Congress Working Committee’s decision of August 19 to reaffirm its 1937 resolution and restrict Vande Mataram to its first two stanzas at Congress programmes.It also pledged to uphold the honour, dignity, legacy and national status of the complete Vande Mataram as the National Song of Bharat and as an immortal symbol of India’s national consciousness and freedom struggle.The resolution further affirmed the constitutional and statutory status of Vande Mataram as established by the Constituent Assembly’s 1950 pronouncement and reinforced by Parliament’s 2026 amendment extending statutory protection to the National Song equivalent to that accorded to the National Anthem.The resolution rejected attempts to subordinate the National Song to communal pressure, political appeasement or narrow vote-bank considerations.“We also resolve to remind the Congress that a resolution of its Working Committee cannot override the constitutional institutions or laws of the Republic of India, and that a political compromise of 1937 cannot be elevated above the constitutional settlement of 1950 and legislation enacted by Parliament in 2026,” the BJP said.The party also vowed to expose before the people of Bharat the historical and political context in which the truncation of Vande Mataram took place, including the objections raised by the Muslim League and the subsequent politics of communal and separatist demands.“We also pledge to recall and disseminate Mahatma Gandhi’s own testimony that Vande Mataram had become an ‘anti-imperialist cry’ and that he associated it with ‘the purest national spirit’, demonstrating its larger national meaning beyond the literary or religious context of particular stanzas.“We will undertake a nationwide campaign through BJP Karyakartas to take the history, meaning, national significance and glorious legacy of Vande Mataram to every corner of Bharat,” the resolution stated.Nabin said the party would educate and mobilise the people, especially the younger generation, so that the complete six-stanza national song and its history are not forgotten and future generations understand the sacrifices, struggles and patriotic awakening with which Vande Mataram is inseparably associated.“We affirm that no compromise can be accepted with the honour and legacy of Vande Mataram for political convenience or appeasement. This is not merely a matter concerning a political party. It concerns the honour of Bharat and the legacy of countless patriots who sacrificed for the freedom of the nation.“The BJP calls upon every citizen to remember that the words Vande Mataram were once powerful enough to frighten an empire. The British sought to suppress them because they awakened resistance. Generations of Indians carried them as a mantra of freedom, sacrifice and national pride,” Nabin said.The BJP said national legacy cannot be reduced to the calculations of contemporary vote-bank politics.“The same ‘Vande Mataram’ that echoed as the call for freedom in 1947 will resound as the supreme chant for a ‘Developed India @ 2047’ under the vision of PM Narendra Modi,” Nabin said.