Dehradun: Barely a week after Uttarkhand’s Higher Education Minister and a former RSS functionary Dhan Singh Rawat made hoisting of the national flag mandatory in universities across the state, he is now trying to ensure that singing of the national anthem and national song is made compulsory in colleges.

While addressing students of a private college in Roorkee, he said that if you want to stay in Uttarakhand, you have to sing Vande Mataram.

He further said that they will also stipulate the timings of the songs. The national anthem should be sung at 10 in the morning and the national song at 4 in the evening.

In damage control later, he told CNN-News18, “The media has taken my speech out of context. The media is not playing my full speech. We are taking advice from various people. From the next session, we will make singing Vande Mataram compulsory in our colleges and schools. Everyone should sing Vande Mataram. In our state, no one is opposing Vande Mataram.”

In order to bring uniformity among all students, there might soon be a dress code for graduate and post-graduate students, he also said.

Last week in Meerut, Mayor Harikant Ahluwalia had issued an order that corporators who refuse to sing Vande Mataram will not be allowed to take part in future proceedings of the Nagar Nigam. Ahluwalia is a leader of the BJP, which is in majority in the Meerut Corporation.

After Meerut, Allahabad now faces Vande Mataram row. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Councillors at the Allahabad Nagar Nigam on Thursday demanded a new rule, under which the house proceedings would start with the national song Vande Matram and end with the national anthem Jana Gana Mana.