In the run-up to the West Bengal Assembly elections slated for March-April next year, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the principal Opposition BJP are caught in a new conflict, this time over two of the state’s cultural icons – Rabindranath Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay.

While the BJP dispensation is celebrating 150 years of the national song Vande Mataram, written by Chattopadhyay, the TMC has alleged that the BJP has insulted Tagore, who composed the national anthem Jana Gana Mana.

A controversy erupted when Karnataka BJP leader Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri, during an event marking 150 years of Vande Mataram, remarked that it should have been the national anthem. Kageri suggested that Jana Gana Mana was written as a welcome song for British officials, though he later re

See Full Page