Congress Party has been accused of violating Intellectual Property Rights. The song used by the party in its social media campaign video is a musical version of a poem written by Colonel (Rtd) JK Singh ‘Mai saara Hindustan hoon’. The campaign song of Congress has thus come under a lot of controversies.
Colonel’s wife Neetika Singh has reported to the Dainik Jagran that the song used by the party in their campaign is from collection of poems by her husband. She has written an open letter to Rahul Gandhi, asking him to take permission before using the poem for his party’s campaign video. If the Congress has taken the same poem, it will then be a violation of Intellectual Property Rights.
Neetika Singh said that Mr. Singh loves writing poems and she, with great efforts, had collected all of them. The book, with the compilation of his poems, was launched in 2012 at Jallianwala Bagh. The retired colonel is a patriot and has immense love and respect for his soldiers. He had written many poems about Indian soldiers and the book was released with the name ‘Mai Sara Hindustan Hoon’.
She also mentioned that the poem was recently recited during the inaugural ceremony of National War Memorial on 25th February. The claim made by Mrs Singh is that the song Rahul Gandhi’s party has used in the campaign video is inspired by the poem written by Col JK Singh. Col JK Singh’s family does not demand any royalty for the poem but has asked the Congress Party to provide financial assistance to a soldier’s family in Jharkhand. The family seeks a courteous permission by the Congress party before using the poem as a song for the campaign video on social media. A major portion of the song matches the lines in the poem written by Col JK Singh.
When media asked Congress leader Gulam Nabi Azad questions regarding the song, he very subtly avoided them, saying that he has no knowledge about it. Congress has not released any statement or justification regarding the claim made by Neetika Singh. The silence of the Congress party is an indication that the claim made by Mrs Singh might be true. The Congress has to respond on the allegation as soon as possible. Avoiding the issue might land Congress in trouble. This would further taint the image of the party and affect their performance in Lok Sabha elections.