'Netaji has been neglected for long, attempts being made to change history'

Kolkata: Iterating that Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and his contributions to the country's freedom movement has long been "neglected", Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said attempts were being made to change history by painting people who were against the Independence struggle in "political colours".

The Bengal government will be organising a state-wide year-long programme to mark the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

A committee headed Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been set up for the same.

Banerjee, who recently wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to declare Netaji's birthday as national holiday, on Thursday said: "Different programmes will be organised across the state for a year from January 23 in 2021 to mark the 125th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. A committee has been set up to chalk out a detailed plan on the year-long programme."

Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay later read out the names of the committee members following instruction of the Chief Minister.

He said that the Chief Minister is the chairperson of the committee along with other members including Nobel laureate Prof. Amartya Sen, Nobel laureate Dr Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Prof. Sugata Basu, Prof. Sumantra Bose, Sankha Ghosh, Sirsendu Mukhopadhyay, Rudra Prasad Sengupta, Jogen Chowdhury, Suvaprasanna Bhattacharya, Joy Goswami, Subodh Sarkar, Nirsingha Prasad Bhaduri, Abul Basar, Sadhya Mukhopadhyay, Mamata Shankar, Arpita Ghosh, Manoj Mitra, Manoranjan Byapari, Vice- Chancellor of Calcutta University Sonali Chakraborty Banerjee, Vice-Chancellor of Jadavpur University Prof. Suranjan Das, Vice Chancellor of Presidency University Prof. Anuradha Lohia, Vice-Chancellor of Netaji Subhas Open University Prof. Suvo Shankar Sarkar, Archbishop of Kolkata Thomas D'Souza, Bachchan Singh Saral, Vivek Gupta and Nadimul Haque are the members of the committee. Ministers including the state Finance minister Amit Mitra, the state Education minister Partha Chatterjee, the state Urban Development and Municipal Affairs minister Firhad Hakim, the state panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee and the state Science and Technology and Bio-Technology minister Bratya Basu are also the members of the committee.

The Chief Minister also announced the names of Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, Home Secretary HK Dwivedi, Finance secretary Manoj Pant, principal secretary of the school education department and higher education department Manish Jain, secretary of Information and Cultural Affairs department Santanu Basu, Director General of Police Virendera, SSA Surojit Kar Purkayastha and ADG (law and Order) Gyanwant Singh are also in the committee.

The committee will begin its work at the earliest as the year-long programme will begin from January 23.

Banerjee said: "When Rajib Gandhi was Prime Minister it was me who took initiative and ensured that the Kolkata Airport to be named after Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose".

She once again demanded disclosure of all files with the Centre to let people know the correct facts about the disappearance of Netaji.