Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Congress chief Tariq Hameed Karra on Friday criticised Chief Minister Omar Abdullah for saying that failure to comply with the Centre’s direction on singing the full version of ‘Vande Mataram’ could land Kashmiris in jail, calling his remarks “highly unfortunate” and “detached from reality”.
Earlier, while reacting to the controversy over the full version of the national song being played at a film festival, Abdullah asserted that it was a statutory requirement, and questioned whether the Congress wanted Kashmiris to be jailed.
In response, Karra pointed out that Keralam had decided to sing only the first two stanzas and that no one was put behind bars.
“Omar Abdullah sahib’s comment is detached from reality and, therefore, highly unfortunate,” he said.
Differences among the alliance partners cropped up after Congress slammed the ruling National Conference over the full rendition of the national song played at the inauguration of the International Film Festival of Jammu & Kashmir (IFFJK) here.
Abdullah defended the move, saying that the issue was needlessly politicised.
The chief minister had said that legally, wherever the national anthem is played, all six stanzas of Vande Mataram have been made mandatory.
“This is not just for Jammu and Kashmir; it applies across the entire country. In states governed by Congress, the same will happen at government functions. This is now a statutory obligation,” he said.
“Does Congress want Kashmiris to be thrown in jail on this issue?” he added.
The CM said his party had not adopted the full song and has no objection if the Congress revokes it in the future once it comes to power.
“When Congress comes to power, and I pray they come to power as soon as possible, they can revoke this in Parliament. Let them do it, we have no objection. In fact, as a party, we have never adopted Vande Mataram, and we won’t adopt it in the future either. But whatever our legal and statutory obligations are, we have to fulfill them,” he said.
Pushing back at the CM’s assertion, Karra questioned why Abdullah had framed the controversy around the general population.
“How did the people of Jammu & Kashmir come into the picture when our expectations were clearly and exclusively from the Government of Jammu & Kashmir?” Karra asked, asserting that the public had no role in the debate and that the onus remained squarely on the government to “stand upright.”
Karra drew parallels with other non-BJP-ruled states to challenge the chief minister’s stance on statutory compliance.
“But since Omar Sahib has raised the issue, it begs two questions: One, did a single person in Kerala go to jail when its government chose to sing only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram at the Independence Day parade?”
“And second, are we wrong to expect our Hon’ble CM to be equally capable of standing up for secular and inclusive values as the CMs of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and now even Karnataka and Telangana have done by limiting Vande Mataram to first two stanzas at state events?” he asked.
Karra said the IFFJK was a “state event” organised jointly by the Directorate of Information and Public Relations (DIPR), J&K, and the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), and it was inaugurated by Chief Minister Abdullah himself.
“So, who else was or wasn’t present is irrelevant, it is a superfluous detail meant only to distract from the core issue,” he added.