Congress MP Rajmohan Unnithan on August 8 opposed the full rendition of Vande Mataram in Keralam, saying that the complete version would not be sung in the state “in this lifetime” and “even if Prime Minister Modi threatens to shoot them (Congressmen) down”. He said he was not aware of any directive from the state Chief Secretary regarding the rendition of the full text of Vande Mataram, the national song, and maintained that ‘it will be rendered in the manner it has been sung till now; nothing more will be sung’.
Unnithan was responding to the state Chief Secretary’s letter of August 6, which directed that the national song Vande Mataram be recited in full alongside the flag hoisting during the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign (August 9–17), based on a directive from the Union Ministry of Culture.
The letter mandated that physical celebrations combine flag hoisting with the collective singing of Vande Mataram in its full version (all six stanzas). It links the 2026 Har Ghar Tiranga programme to the third phase of the 150th year nationwide commemoration of Vande Mataram.
The 2026 edition of the campaign, launched in 2022 under Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, had been integrated with the third phase.
Congress MP further alleged that the Lok Bhavans are now the hub of ‘low-level politics and Governors are now working to sabotage democracy with money power’.
He alleged that justice cannot be expected from them. He went to the extent of saying that the Governors are the sycophants of the Union government.
Keralam Health Minister K. Muraleedharan also stated that the state government will not follow a central directive to sing the full six-stanza version of Vande Mataram at official events. He confirmed that Keralam will maintain its established protocol of singing only the first two stanzas.
The opposition CPM criticised the Chief Secretary’s letter directing the rendition of the full text of Vande Mataram. The party charged that the letter marks the state government’s surrender before the RSS agenda.
Binoy Viswam, the Keralam state secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI), the second largest constituent of the CPM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF), criticised the full rendition of Vande Mataram at official state functions. He alleged that singing the complete text is contrary to Bharat’s secular principles and historical conventions established by national leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.
Here, what one sees is the unity among the INDI Alliance partners in keeping away from the mainstream of national life and nationalism.
