India, Dec. 8 -- "Bihar ki jeet hamari hai, ab Bengal ki baari hai" - this slogan accompanied chants of "Vande Mataram" by BJP-led NDA members as Prime Minister Narendra Modi entered the Lok Sabha to initiate a discussion to mark the 150th anniversary year of the national song, in New Delhi on Monday.

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"We have won Bihar, it's now the turn of Bengal," the slogan meant, pointing towards the West Bengal state assembly election due early next year. That was, of course, not a stated reason why Bengal - the wider region encompassing Bangladesh - remained central to the Vande Mataram discussion.

Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, however, pointedly accused the BJP-led NDA government of politicising th...