Under attack from the BJP, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said on Wednesday that the Jamiat-Ulema-e-Hind resolution which asked Muslims not to sing the Vande Mataram was not passed in his presence and he was not aware of it.

A day after the BJP criticised him for attending the Jamiat conclave in Deoband and argued that his presence there had legitimised the resolution, Chidambaram’s office issued a statement rejecting the charges. It said no resolution was passed when he was present at the conference.

However, the BJP continued to target him, seeking an apology, and the Shiv Sena joined in, saying those opposed to the song should go to Pakistan or Bangladesh.

Asked about its reaction, the Congress said the matter was sensitive, involving religious sentiments, and no controversy should be raked up over it. “It is our national song. And there are also religious sentiments attached. Keeping in mind all these facts, the issue should not be made controversial,” said spokesperson Shakeel Ahmad.

Chidambaram also got support from unexpected quarters when Samajwadi Party (SP) general secretary Amar Singh defended his presence at the meeting, and said the BJP should not politicise the issue. “We should find a middle path. Muslims are not against Vande Mataram but have religious compulsions against singing it,” Singh said.

The statement said “Chidambaram was reading from a prepared text and there was no occasion to depart from that text.”

Refusing to accept this, senior BJP leader Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the Home Minister, who has the entire intelligence apparatus at his disposal, should know such things in advance. “I am surprised that the Home Minister of a country in which terrorism, separatism and Naxalism are at their peak was not aware that he was going to attend a programme where our national song was insulted.”