The union government has set up an 85-member panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose starting from January 23. The committee includes senior cabinet ministers, chief ministers, former prime ministers, several BJP MPs, actors and artists, and those associated with Bose.
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With the West Bengal elections due in April-May, all parties were vying to claim the legacy of the iconic freedom fighter.
The constitution of this panel comes almost a fortnight after the culture ministry had announced setting up of a panel to be headed by Home Minister Amit Shah in December last year. As Shah was leading the party's election campaign in West Bengal, the leaders from other parties had reservations in joining the government panel. The new panel has representation from key Bengal parties.
The state elections had queered the pitch to celebrate the legacy of Bose. Mamata Banerjee had earlier demanded that January 23 be declared as national holiday, while the Congress had promised to build the tallest statue for the freedom fighter if elected to power in the state. All parties are trying to play into the Bengali sentiment by invoking the legacy of state's icons. The BJP strategy also has been to endear itself to the state electorate by highlighting contributions of the cultural personalities from the state.
Prime Minister Modi is expected to visit Bengal on Netaji's birth anniversary. His visit will also set the pace for the party's campaign in the state where Shah and BJP chief JP Nadda are aggressively campaigning.
The Modi government had in 2015 made public all the confidential files related to Bose's disappearance, apart from setting up a museum at Red Fort, New Delhi. At that time, the BJP had accused the former Congress government of vested interests in downplaying the contribution of Bose, and keeping files of his disappearance hidden from public.
The new panel also has most members from the BJP, or those inclined towards it. The new panel headed by the prime minister includes ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nirmala Sitharaman, Narendra Singh Tomar, Smriti Irani, Prakash Javadekar, Jitendra Singh, Prahlad Singh Patel, Babul Supriyo and Debashree Chaudhuri. Former ministers HD Deve Gowda and Manmohan Singh have also been included in the panel. The present Lok Sabha speaker OM Birla, along with former speakers Manohar Joshi, Meira Kumar, Sumitra Mahajan have been included.
The chief ministers in the panel include Mamata Banerjee representing Bengal, Naveen Patnaik (Odisha), Neiphui Rio (Nagaland), N. Biren Singh (Manipur), Zoramthanga (Mizoram), Biplab Kumar Deb (Tripura), and Conrad Sangma (Meghalaya).
The panel has maximum 11 MPs from the BJP who come from Bengal, while Trinamool Congress is represented by Sudip Bandhyopadhyay, Congress by Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Ghulam Nabi Azad, Sharad Pawar (NCP), Bhartru Hari Mahatab (BJD). CPM is represented by former Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. BJP MPs part of the panel are Swapan Dasgupta, Roopa Ganguly, Raju Bista, Sunil Mondol, Jagannath Sarkar, Jayanta Kumar Roy, Khan Saumitra, Khagen Murmu, Dilip Ghosh, Jyotirmay Singh Mahato.
Interestingly, former TMC minister Suvendu Adhikari, who recently switched sides to join BJP has also been made member of the panel.
The prominent personalities who have found place in the panel include former cricketer and BCCI chief Sourav Ganguly, actress Kajol, Kaushik Ganguly, Mithun Chakraborty, Subrata Bhattacharya and eminent musician AR Rahman.
Among the INA freedom fighters Rama Khandwala, Lakshmi Krishnan, Asha Sahai John Lobo, Ishwarlal Singh have been included. Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s daughter Anita Bose, Bose’s nephew Ardhendu Bose, grandnephew Chandra Kumar Bose and Bose’s grandniece Renuka Malaker are part of it.
Other members include Brig(Rtd) R.S. Chhikara, Major General (Rtd.) G.D. Bakshi, J. S. Rajput, Kapil Kumar, Purabi Roy, Vera Hildebrand, Vekho Swuro, Md Ashraful Islam, Premanand Sharma Ravi Kasliwal, Kanchan Gupta, Anirban Ganguli, former army chief Shankar Roy Chaudhary and former air force chief Arup Raha.
The panel will draw a list of activities to be undertaken through the anniversary year. The government will aim to bring a large array of historical documents, clippings, photos, videos, memorabilia and other material is available with the families of Netaji as well as those of INA members at one place for display and dissemination.
A museum on Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose is proposed to be set up in Kolkata. Other activities include holding a grand exhibition on Netaji at Victoria Memorial, Kolkata; projection mapping at the memorial and an eminent personality will deliver the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Memorial lecture. The celebrations would also include cultural programmes in West Bengal under the “Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat” programme.
