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New Delhi: Union home minister, Amit Shah, is to introduce a Bill in the Rajya Sabha on Monday (July 20) in the Monsoon Session of parliament, to criminalise “insult to national song, Vande Mataram”.

On the lines of the national anthem, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government proposes jail term of three years for anyone who prevents singing of Vande Mataram or causes disturbances to any assembly engaged in the singing.

As for the need to include Vande Mataram in the 1971 Act prohibiting insults to national honours, the government states, “At the meeting of the Constituent Assembly held on the 24th January, 1950, its President, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, stated that the song Vande Mataram composed by, Shri Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, which played a historic role in the........

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