Bengaluru, Feb. 12 -- Chief Whip of the Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Council N Ravi Kumar on Thursday asserted that Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar has no moral right to claim credit on the issue of Vande Mataram, saying the Congress had historically truncated the national song to appease Muslims.
In a statement, Ravi Kumar recalled that in 1937, Muslim League leaders objected to the last four stanzas of Vande Mataram, citing references to Goddess Durga and Goddess Lakshmi as "idolatory" and unacceptable.
He said Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, presiding over the Congress session at Faizpur that year, discussed the matter with Mahatma Gandhi and, following the advice of Rabindranath Tagore, agreed to reduce Vande Mataram to only t...