BJP cites insult to Bankim Chandra, Trinamool highlights snub to Tagore

The West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leadership on Friday (November 7, 2025) observed 150 years of the National Song ‘Vande Mataram’ written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay accusing the Trinamool Congress of not paying enough respect to the national icon.

Leader of Opposition in West Bengal Assembly Suvendu Adhikari led a procession to College Square in north Kolkata where a statue of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay has been installed. The BJP leader expressed his resentment that the gates of the park were closed and there was no garland on the statue of the national icon.

“Bengalis should watch this. The Trinamool shouts Bengali Bengali. Rishi Bankim Chandra is the soul to the people of Bengal,” the BJP leader said after finding the gates of the park closed.

The Nandigram MLA publicly sang ‘Vande Mataram’ and said such celebrations have been organised by the party in over 1500 places in West Bengal. The development came on the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated a year-long commemoration of “Vande Mataram” to mark 150 years of the national song.

“TMC is not a patriotic party. Had it been a patriotic party it would not have issued a notification making song by Tagore compulsory in schools across the State. A notification should have been on singing Vande Mataram,” Mr. Adhikari said. The BJP leader was referring to a notification issued by West Bengal Board of Secondary Education making Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s ‘Banglar mati, Banglar jol’, the state’s official song, mandatory at morning assemblies in government-aided and sponsored schools across the State.

During the State BJP president Samik Bhattacharya also led a procession at Chinsurah in Hooghly district highlighting the significance of Vande Mataram.

Trinamool Congress leadership also held a press conference on Friday and alleged that a person holding constitutional post in Karnataka made derogatory remarks against Bengal and, particularly, against Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore.

State’s Minister Sashi Panja was referring to a remark allegedly made by BJP MP Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri where he said that the country’s national anthem penned by Tagore was written “to welcome the British official”.

“ The BJP has never liked Rabindranath Tagore. There are three reasons for this: first, he was not a Hindu or Brahmin but a Brahmo, which was later classified by the Supreme Court as a part of Hinduism. But the kind of “Hindu” identity the BJP seeks to impose does not include Tagore,” West Bengal Educational Minister Bratya Basu said at the press conference.

The Minister, while saying that BJP was a party of divisions, said that the party was trying to create division between two great Bengalis—Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay and Rabindranath Tagore.

Prior to this the decision of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to lodge an FIR against a Congress leader who sang Bangladesh national anthem penned by Tagore has also created a controversy in the State. Members of the civil society including academicians like Pabitra Sarkar had hit the streets singing “ Amar Sonar Bangla ( My Golden Bengal)’ which is also the national anthem of Bangladesh.