Children at a school in Jammu salute before singing Vande Mataram on Thursday. (Reuters)

New Delhi/Dehra Dun, Sept. 7: The BJP drew first blood, asking whether Sonia Gandhi didn’t skip the morning function at her party headquarters just to avoid singing Vande Mataram.

Its cadre in Uttaranchal — where the BJP national executive was held at Dehra Dun —egged on passengers in buses and trains, schoolchildren, pedestrians and office-goers to join in their full-throated rendition of the song.

But the Congress had an ace up its sleeve.

The party sprang it in the evening. Arif Mohammed Khan, once the BJP’s “Muslim mascot”, appeared at a Red Fort function to pay tribute to freedom-struggle martyrs.

Flanked by Congress “secularists” Arjun Singh and Mani Shankar Aiyar, Khan, who should have been at Dehra Dun, declared: “This song cannot be made a touchstone of patriotism although it was the main inspiration of the struggle for independence.”

The verbal duel to prove which party was more patriotic continued through the day, throwing up gems like “how many Gujaratis are there in the armed services?”

The BJP set up a five-member panel to rework its Vande Mataram strategy, demanding that respect for the song be made a fundamental duty under the Constitution. The Congress cagily plugged its nationalist bona fides taking care not to offend Muslims.

The Red Fort function was organised by a government committee overseeing the song’s centenary celebrations, but with Digvijay Singh in the chair and the dais teeming with Congress functionaries and ministers, the party connection was clear.

But just as she had skipped the 24 Akbar Road function, Sonia kept away again.

“She does not think it appropriate to attend the celebrations and sing Vande Mataram. It is not a casual but a conscious act,” thundered BJP chief Rajnath Singh. “Vote bank politics,” smirked M. Venkaiah Naidu.

But Congress general secretary B.K. Hari Prasad had an explanation: the Akbar Road programme was “strictly a Seva Dal” function that Sonia wasn’t obliged to attend.

Yet, would the likes of Ahmed Patel, Digvijay and Janardhan Dwivedi have turned up at 9 am were it not for a midnight message from control room saying Sonia-confidant Motilal Vora had arranged it? Didn’t the message imply she would come to the function?

“Such explanations (as Prasad’s) are laughable. It was the worst form of minority appeasement,” scoffed Rajnath.

Congress leaders shot back they had “proof” of A.B. Vajpayee having turned approver for the Raj. “We have years of history to vouch for our nationalist credentials. Narendra Modi’s Gujarat is touted as the most nationalistic state, but how many Gujaratis are there in the armed services?” a functionary asked.

Sources said Sonia had called a working committee meeting on September 10 to discuss how to observe the centenary of the Mahatma’s satyagraha in South Africa. “She doesn’t need lessons in history and patriotism from Vajpayee and Advani,” a party leader said.

Far away, on the Dehra Dun-bound Shatabdi, BJP leaders and workers were making fellow passengers sing Vande Mataram. In coach C6, Gopinath Munde and Kirit Somaya led the chorus, egging others on. Sushma Swaraj and V.K. Malhotra got off at Saharanpur and headed for Muslim-dominated Chhutmalpur to sing the song.

Other leaders furiously exchanged full text messages of the song over their mobiles. “I have forwarded over 200 messages,” gushed former minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy.