Mamata says BJP leaders not aware of Bengal icons as Parliament discusses Vande Mataram

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday (December 8, 2025) welcomed a discussion on 150 years of Vande Mataram in the Lok Sabha but added that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders were not aware of the contribution of Bengal in the freedom struggle.

“Let him (PM) do whatever he wants. We have no problem…Earlier, the Rajya Sabha issued a notification stating that Jai Hind and Vande Mataram would not be allowed,” the Chief Minister told journalists before leaving for North Bengal.

The Chief Minister said that the BJP leadership is not aware of the contribution of the icons of Bengal. “ I also heard yesterday that some individuals in the BJP do not like Netaji. So they do not like Netaji, Gandhiji or Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Who exactly do they like? How have such people come to the forefront when they do not even know the history of India? Are they aware of Bengal’s contribution?,” she said.

The Trinamool Congress chairperson also added that “regarding Vande Mataram, I want to say that it originates from Bengal, just like our national anthem. The whole song of Vande Mataram was not taken, only selected lines were adopted”. Last month Prime Minister Narendra Modi had stated “crucial” verses of Vande Mataram were removed in 1937, fragmenting the song and sowing the seeds of the country’s partition.

The Trinamool Congress leadership also took exception to the Prime Minister referring Bamkim Chandra Chattopadhyay as ‘Bankim da” who penned Vande Mataram about 150 years ago.

The West Bengal ruling party took to social media and said that BJP is utterly alien to Bengal’s way of life .“In Bengal, our literary, cultural, and spiritual icons are sacred pillars of our civilisational consciousness. We revere Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. We venerate Vande Mataram as a timeless anthem of resistance and national awakening. But BJP understands none of this. None. Which is precisely why @narendramodi had the audacity to refer to Rishi Bankim as “Bankim da”, as though he were a college senior, a chai-stall acquaintance, or a campaign prop to be casually name-dropped,” the Trinamool Congress said.

After intervention of TMC MP Sougata Roy, the Prime Minister in Lok Sabha switched to ‘Bankim Babu’ but the Trinamool Congress was unaccommodating in the criticism of the Prime Minister. The Trinamool Congress has often dubbed BJP as a party of “outsiders” and the development assumes significance before upcoming assembly polls in the State.

“This is what happens when outsiders who have no organic connection to Bengal’s intellectual tradition try to mimic reverence they have never learned to practice. They mispronounce, they trivialise, they reduce giants to gimmicks, and in the process, expose their utter contempt for what Bengal truly stands for,” the Trinamool Congress said.

Only a few weeks ago, the Trinamool Congress and the BJP in West Bengal were competing to appropriate cons like Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. The Trinamool Congress government has recently come out with a notification that Tagore’s Song “Banglar Maati Banglar Jal’ ( Bengal land and Bengal’s water)’ will be played during morning assembly in state-run schools. The BJP, which has been trying to appropriate Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, had questioned the timing of the decision, saying that the Trinamool was not offering the desired respect to Vande Mataram, which was a war cry during the freedom struggle.