Assam CM orders treason case against Congress over Bangladesh anthem row

Guwahati, Oct 30: The Assam government has instructed the police to register a case of treason against Congress leaders of Sribhumi district for singing the national anthem of Bangladesh at a party meeting.

Alleging the recitation is an endorsement of the claim by a section of leaders in Bangladesh that the entire Northeast is part of the neighbouring nation, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the act is an “blatant disrespect to the people of India and its national anthem”.

“I’ve already instructed the police to register a case of treason under various sections of the law against the Sribhumi District Congress Committee and its leaders,” he told the press, post a cabinet meeting, on Wednesday.

The incident happened during a Seva Dal meeting at the district Congress office in Sribhumi town on Tuesday, when leaders of the Grand Old Party started the proceedings after singing two lines of the Bangladeshi National Anthem 'Amar Sonar Bangla', written by Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore, who also penned the Indian National Anthem.

"The Bangladesh national anthem was performed by showing the same respect we do for our national anthem. We cannot accept singing the Bangladesh national anthem in Assam. It is in line with the new claim of various Bangladeshi leading citizens that eventually Northeast will be part of Bangladesh,” Sarma said.

Meanwhile, the state Congress has claimed that the BJP is creating an "unnecessary controversy" as it has no other issue to divert people's attention.

Responding to the controversy, Sribhumi District Congress president Tapas Purkayastha said, "Don't play politics with Rabindranath Tagore. Our pride, 85-year-old poet Vidhu Bhushan Das, sang only two lines of the song. Criticising this song means insulting Rabindranath Tagore."

State Congress president Gaurav Gogoi also criticised the BJP and said the ruling party is trying to politicise it and are deliberately ignoring the cultural and historical context behind it.

“The BJP has always claimed to have respected Bengali culture, but in reality, they have repeatedly insulted the Bengali language and its people," he told the press, in Guwahati.

Gogoi also said that the saffron party's recent action once again exposed its ignorance of Bengal's rich heritage, legacy of Tagore and his philosophy.

"The truth is that the BJP only remembers the Bengali-speaking community during elections for their votes, but has never truly tried to understand their culture, language or depth of thought," he added.

Reacting to Gogoi's statement, Sarma, in the post-cabinet press meet, said that the state Congress chief should have expelled the party leaders immediately for singing the Bangladeshi national anthem.

"But Gaurav Gogoi probably liked it because this is a project of the Pakistan government. Congress has sent a message as if Assam is a part of Bangladesh. Therefore, this Congress party is Pakistan and Bangladesh's 'dot dot' party. I don't want to mention the bad words," he asserted.

PTI