Backing West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's demand to declare Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's birth anniversary as a national holiday, his grand-nephew on Wednesday said January 23 should be declared as Patriot's day.
Chandra Kumar Bose, grand-nephew of Subhash Chandra Bose said that declaring January 23 as a national holiday has been a long-standing demand of the people of our nation. Bose also expressed confidence that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will declare the day a national holiday as Patriot's day.
"Mamata Banerjee's demand to declare January 23 as a national holiday is genuine. The people of India and the Bose family fully support this demand. But more importantly, January 23 must be declared as Patriot's Day," Bose told .
"Secondly, Mamata Banerjee has stated that disappearance angle of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose has not yet been settled. Efforts have been made by PM Modi to declassify all files and try to resolve India's biggest mystery of Netaji's disappearance," Bose said.
"However, to date, we have not been able to resolve this mystery. First, we would like to know whether 77 intelligence bureau files, as stated in Justice Mukherjee Committee report, have been declassified and put in the public domain," he added.
Bose said that he has raised this issue with the Government of India several times, but added that he has not received any suitable replies so far.
"Thirdly, ta Bose Pfaff, Netaji's only daughter and a senior member of the Bose family has repeatedly written to the PM to examine the possibility whether a DNA test could be conducted on the ashes kept at the Renko-ji temple. Unless a DNA test is conducted, we cannot come to a conclusion as to whether those ashes belong to Subhash Chandra Bose," he said.
Renko-ji is a Buddhist temple in Tokyo, Japan, where the ashes of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose are assumed to have been preserved since September 18, 1945.
"I think this issue should not be made political. Banerjee has raised this issue. We welcome it. But, as Netaji is much above politics, we should not get embroiled in political warfare. Let us honour Bose and declare it a national holiday as Patriot's day," Bose said.
Yesterday. Mamata Banerjee had written to PM Modi to declare January 23, the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, as a national holiday and take decisive steps "to find out what happened to Netaji and place the matter in the public domain".
( With inputs from ANI )
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