Overview
- Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced that singing ‘Vande Mataram’ will be compulsory in all schools and colleges across Uttar Pradesh.
- He said obstruction to the song is the biggest obstacle to national unity and asserted that those refusing to sing are opposing Bharat Mata.
- At the launch of the Rashtriya Ekta Yatra in Kursi, he described the song as a devotional hymn, invoking Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati to underscore patriotism.
- While defending the push, he also called the chant an expression of gratitude rather than a compulsion, without detailing how the mandate will be implemented.
- The declaration follows a national dispute after the Prime Minister linked the 1937 omission of stanzas to the Partition, drawing BJP attacks on Congress and a Congress rebuttal.