Mamata Banerjee slams Center on Netaji’s files, says: We don’t know about him till date
Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise to build a statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at India Gate seems to have not eased the tension between him and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. Banerjee questioned why the Center did not declassify the files related to Bose’s death. His party has demanded that the ashes preserved in Japan’s Renkoji temple, believed to be that of freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, be sent for DNA analysis. Mamta Banerjee said in a program on the occasion of his 125th birth anniversary, “Till today we do not have complete information about Netaji”.
He was quoted as saying by news agency ANI, “They (Centre) had said that they will work on it when it comes to power but nothing happened. In fact, we (state) released and made public all the files of Netaji Bose. Is done.”
The controversy over Netaji’s death is a highly emotional issue in Bengal and many still believe that he did not die in a plane crash in 1945. In 2017, in response to a question under the Right to Information Act, the Center had confirmed that Subhas Chandra Bose had died in a plane crash in Taipei on August 18, 1945.
The Center also claims that it has made public all the files related to Netaji. In April 2016, the Center had released the third batch of 25 unclassified files, which included five files of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Home Ministry and 15 files of the Ministry of External Affairs. These files were from the period between 1956 and 2009.
However, a section of researchers alleges that the Intelligence Bureau files in this case have still not been made public. On Saturday, Trinamool Congress MP Sukhendu Shekhar Ray wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting him to declassify “Netaji’s files”.
PM Modi had said in Mann Ki Baat that the Center has fulfilled the demand of declassifying Netaji’s files and promised to install a granite statue of Netaji at India Gate.
Significantly, a hologram of Netaji will be installed at India Gate till the statue is ready, PM Modi tweeted while sharing a picture. Banerjee claimed that the statue was also being made only “because we had put pressure”.
