West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday wrote to PM Modi urging him to reconsider the decision of excluding West Bengal’s proposed tableau for the Republic Day parade. “It is even more baffling for us that the tableau was rejected without assigning any reasons or justifications,” Mamata wrote adding that she was profoundly shocked and hurt by the decision.
The proposed tableau was to commemorate Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his Indian National Army on his 125th birth anniversary. The tableau would have carried portraits of Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore, Vivekananda, Chittaranjan Das, Sri Aurobindo, Matangini Hazra, Birsa Munda, Nazrul Islam, Mamata wrote,
“All the people of West Bengal are deeply pained by this attitude of the central government. Bengal was at the forefront of the Indian freedom struggle and has paid the heaviest price for the country’s Independence through the partition,” Mamata added.
