Goa: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge hit back at the BJP over the Vande Mataram row, asking whether cases should also be filed against Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel if singing the national song in the Congress' traditional format is considered a crime.

Kharge was responding to BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad's criticism of the Congress for singing only two stanzas of Vande Mataram at a party programme in Goa.

"I sang the same 'Vande Mataram' that Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru sang. If singing it is a crime, then they have been committing that crime for the past 18 years," Kharge said.

"If this is a crime, then file a case against Gandhi ji. If this is a crime, file one against Nehru ji. If this is a crime, then against Vallabhbhai Patel," he added.

Kharge argued that the Congress' decision to sing Vande Mataram in the manner it did in Goa was not a recent move.

He said the Congress had passed a resolution before the country's Independence determining which national songs would be adopted, and accused the BJP of suggesting that its own interpretation could automatically become the national standard.

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"It is not the case that whatever you say becomes the national standard. Tomorrow, another government might come to power; if they say something, that becomes the rule," Kharge said.

He maintained that the Congress had simply continued a practice followed for decades.

"We have simply continued the practice that has been in place for 90 years," he said.

BJP had alleged Muslim League pressure

The Congress president's remarks came an hour after Prasad accused the party of compromising its traditions over the singing of Vande Mataram.

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Prasad alleged that the Congress' decision to sing only two stanzas was linked to pressure from the Muslim League in the 1930s.

The BJP leader also accused the Congress of abandoning its own traditions because of "vote-bank politics" and questioned its claim to the legacy of the freedom movement.

"If this is what the Congress party is doing with the great national song Vande Mataram, you better stop claiming monopoly as the custodian of the freedom movement," Prasad said.

The exchange has now turned the singing of Vande Mataram at the Goa programme into a fresh political clash between the BJP and Congress, with Kharge defending the Congress' long-standing practice and the BJP questioning the party's position on the national song.

With agency inputs