Sushma Swaraj dancing at the BJP’s Rajghat protest on Sunday night. As she faced calls to resign as Lok Sabha Opposition leader for the allegedly frivolous act at a revered spot, Sushma on Tuesday claimed it was her right to “sing and dance to patriotic songs”. (PTI)

June 7: Such a song and dance over just a little song and dance! Sushma Swaraj can’t understand it.

“We are desh bhakts (patriots) and till our last breath, we will sing and dance to patriotic songs,” she said in Delhi, defending her Sunday-night jig at the BJP’s pro-Ramdev show at Rajghat.

The BJP let Sushma air her side of the story after a “nachiyon ki (dancers’) party” jab from the Congress, which demanded she resign as Lok Sabha Opposition leader.

“I did not think a day would come in independent India when we would have to publicly clarify why we sang patriotic songs,” Sushma fumed, referring to the 1950s Bollywood chartbuster she had shaken a leg to.

“Yeh desh hai veer jawanon kaa, albelon kaa, mastaano kaa (this is a country of brave soldiers, the carefree, the happy-go-lucky)...” goes the song, from the Dilip Kumar-Vyajayanthimala starrer Naya Daur.

Sushma had mentioned the “brave soldiers” part in a tweet last night while justifying her action, but not the rest of the opening line’s lyrics.

It had all happened around 2am on Monday, some seven hours after the “satyagraha” had begun. Sushma took the floor with young MP Anurag Thakur and continued for over five minutes. She tried to pull in Delhi BJP leader Aarti Mehra, who refused.

The Congress’s B.K. Hari Prasad today demanded Sushma’s resignation for “demeaning” her House post and Digvijay Singh hurled the “party of dancers” taunt.

In reply, the Opposition leader went ballistic: “Can we please have the dates and details of when Indira Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and Sheila Dikshit had danced and not to patriotic songs?”

She dared Sonia to state if she had cleared the comments by Digvijay and Hari Prasad: “Has the discourse in the Congress descended to this level with her permission?”

But even some senior BJP leaders were taking pot shots at her that carried sexist undertones. Sushma has in the past annoyed some in the party by donning her bridal finery and leading women BJP members into a public Karva Chauth, and especially after her antics following the May 2004 general election.

Sushma had then threatened to tonsure her head, wear a widow’s white sari, sleep on the floor and eat only uncooked food if Sonia became Prime Minister, drawing flak from orthodox Hindus who queried a married woman’s right to act like a widow.

Swami ‘shame’

Sushma’s mentor L.K. Advani too came under fire, for comparing Baba Ramdev to Swami Vivekananda.

“The absurd comparison made me hang my head in shame,” Digvijay said in Lucknow. “It’s an insult to Swami Vivekananda and his legacy. It’s a shame that he is being compared to a Baba who has been fooling the country.”

The Congress’s chief Ramdev-baiter added: “The BJP had started its journey with Ram and now appears to have stopped at Ramdev.”

It was actor Anupam Kher who originally drew the parallel, telling a TV debate on Sunday: “Why should Baba not take part in social issues? What about Swami Vivekananda then?”

Yesterday, at another TV programme, Advani referred to Kher’s comments and said: “I thought it was quite a relevant comparison.”

A senior sanyasi at the Vivekananda Math in Lucknow said the comparison was “not only inapt but shows lack of understanding of Swami Vivekananda’s legacy”.

Kher, though, had acted in a minor role in a 1995 film on Vivekananda, in which Mithun Chakraborty played Sri Ramakrishna and Sarvadaman D. Banerjee the lead role.