PM Narendra Modi to visit Kolkata to celebrate Netaji’s 125th birth anniversary
The TMC and the BJP have already traded barbs over the Prime Minister’s visit on the occasion of Subash Chandra Bose's 125th birth anniversary.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Kolkata on Saturday for six hours to celebrate the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose.
While the Centre has announced that it would celebrate the day as Parakram Diwas (day of valour), the Mamata Banerjee administration in West Bengal has declared that it would celebrate the day as Deshnayak Divas.
Modi, after landing in Kolkata from Assam, is scheduled to visit Netaji Bhawan, the ancestral house of the legendary freedom fighter in south Kolkata. He would also attend two programs at the National Library and Victoria Memorial to commemorate the occasion before leaving for Delhi around 8:40 pm.
Meanwhile, ahead of the Prime Minister’s visit, the state government has organised a series of programs, including a procession in central Kolkata, in which Banerjee and other ministers would participate. The TMC supremo will also address a rally.
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“Dear sisters and brothers of West Bengal, I am honoured to be in your midst, that too on the auspicious day of #ParakramDivas. During the programmes in Kolkata, we will pay tributes to the brave Netaji, Subhas Chandra Bose,” Modi tweeted in both Bengali and English.
An 85-member high-level committee helmed by PM Modi has been formed to plan year-round programmes to mark the 125th birth anniversary of Bose.
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The state government has appealed to people through televised advertisements to blow conch shells at 12.15 pm, the time of Bose’s birth in Odisha’s Cuttack in 1897.
The TMC and the BJP have already traded barbs over the Prime Minister’s visit. While the TMC alleged it to be a “publicity stunt” to woo West Bengal’s voters ahead of the upcoming assembly polls, the BJP hit back saying it was the Modi-government that gave proper recognition to the Azad Hind government formed by Netaji.