PM Modi Meets Nitin Nabin’s New BJP Team in Delhi After Vande Mataram Row

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday met the Bharatiya Janata Party’s newly formed team under national president Nitin Nabin at the party headquarters in Delhi, shortly after the BJP passed a resolution on the honour and historical legacy of Vande Mataram.

Modi arrived at the BJP headquarters on Saturday evening and was received by Nabin. A video shared by news agency ANI showed Modi and Nabin posing with the entire team of office-bearers recently appointed to various posts.

The 65-member team, announced on August 17, comprises 51 new faces, including Kavita Patidar, K Surendran, Manoj Tigga and Sandeep Pathak. Former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje and former Union minister Smriti Irani are also among those given responsibilities in the new team.

Earlier on Saturday, Nabin met the newly appointed office-bearers and asked them to prioritise “Yuva Samvad”, or continuous engagement with young people. According to Hindustan Times, the BJP plans to launch major youth outreach initiatives in the coming days, with discussions focused on ways to reach people aged 14 and above.

The party has begun constituting dedicated teams of senior leaders from across the country, while the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha has been tasked with helping form and mobilise these teams. Former national office-bearers will also be given a key role in the outreach programme, Hindustan Times reported.

The meeting came shortly after the BJP passed a resolution opposing the Congress Working Committee’s decision to reaffirm its 1937 resolution and sing only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram at party programmes.

The BJP said the legacy of the National Song cannot be “reduced to the calculations of contemporary vote-bank politics.”

The party said it regards Vande Mataram as the National Song of Bharat, an expression of reverence for Bharat Mata, a mantra of the freedom struggle and an immortal symbol of India’s national consciousness.

The BJP resolved to “uphold the honour, dignity, legacy and national status of the complete Vande Mataram as the National Song of Bharat and as an immortal symbol of India’s national consciousness and freedom struggle… To affirm the constitutional and statutory status of Vande Mataram as established by the Constituent Assembly’s 1950 pronouncement and reinforced by Parliament’s 2026 amendment extending statutory protection to the National Song equivalent to that accorded to the National Anthem,” the resolution said.

The BJP also announced a nationwide campaign to raise awareness about Vande Mataram’s history and significance.

The Congress Working Committee had earlier decided to abide by its 1937 resolution and sing only the first two stanzas of Vande Mataram, instead of its full rendition, at all party events.

The BJP said it would reject every attempt to subordinate the National Song to communal pressure, political appeasement or narrow vote-bank considerations.

The resolution said: “…To remind the Congress that a resolution of its Working Committee cannot override the constitutional institutions or laws of the Republic of India, and that a political compromise of 1937 cannot be elevated above the constitutional settlement of 1950 and legislation enacted by Parliament in 2026….To expose before the people of Bharat the historical and political context in which the truncation of Vande Mataram took place, including the objections raised by the Muslim League and the subsequent politics of communal and separatist demands.”

The nationwide campaign will focus on raising awareness about Vande Mataram’s history and significance.