Amid raging controversy over the Centre’s alleged “misdemeanour” inrejecting Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s tableau for the Republic Day parade, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday wrote a letter to Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee clearing the Union Government’s stance on why the decision to exclude Bengal’s tableau on Bose taken.
Claiming that the “selection process for the tableaux in the Republic Day parade is very transparent,” Singh said that a committee of experts from the field of art, culture, music and dance was responsible for the selection of tableaux and that the selection of such tableaux was done after a series of evaluations.
The Defence Minister wrote, “I respect your feelings and would like to personally inform you that out of the 29 proposals received from states/ union territories this year, 12 have been selected.” Then he hoped that the letter would resolve all suspicions she
had.
The Chief Minister had on Sunday written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi registering her protest against dropping of Bengal’s tableau featuring Netaji
Subhash Chandra Bose in the year of his 125th birth anniversary.
While Singh hoped to resolve the issue through the letter Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked the parties that be to “stop seeing bad politics in a display that celebrates India,” even as she twitted “States, GoI ministries & PSUs send proposals for Republic Day tableaux every year. The duration of Parade itself is limited. An Expert Committee of eminences from the arts shortlist from those received. For RD 2022, GoI received 56 proposals; 21 were shortlisted.”
Closing her argument she said: “Incidentally, this year the tableau of CPWDGOV includes Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose… Stop seeing bad politics in a display that celebrates India.”
Meanwhile the ruling Trinamool Congress and Bengal intellectuals continued to see “bad politics” in the Centre’s decision even as they said that last year Netaji’s 125th anniversary was started by the BJP Government as Bengal was going to polls but the tableaux of the great hero was dropped this year because the polls were over and the BJP had lost in it.
Mala Roy the TMC MP from South Kolkata --- where Bose lived before living in the darkness of a night for Germany via Afghanistan --- said “it is very unfortunate … I have no words to express … never was a tableaux rejected in such a manner … as this is not only an insult to Netaji but also an insult to the people of India.”
The Left too criticized the Centre for “acting in a mean manner by rejecting Netaji’s tableau.”
Nirbed Roy, a critic and a scholar said that “in rejecting Netaji’s tableaux the Centre had shown a sick mentality … peculiar to less enlightened and uneducated people only … They name the Kolkata Port after Shyama Prasad Mukherjee while use Netaji’s name for elections … this shows their meanness of mind … Netaji did not belong to Bengal only … he belonged to the whole country.”