Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging his “kind personal intervention” to ensure Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s birth anniversary, January 23, is declared a national holiday, and take steps to clear the mystery behind the icon’s disappearance to the fore, both emotive issues for Bengal.

In her two-page letter, Mamata asked Modi to get the national holiday declared as part of the start of Netaji’s 125th birth anniversary celebrations. Born on January 23, 1897, Netaji’s 125th birth anniversary celebrations are likely to begin from January 23, 2021, and last for a year.

Mamata told Modi that they had been requesting the Centre for long for this, and the start of the 125th birth anniversary celebrations “would be a very appropriate recognition” to the “epitome of determination, courage, leadership, unity and love for motherland”.

This apart, Mamata added: “We would once again request the central government to take decisive steps to find out what happened to Netaji and place the matter in public domain...”
Several accounts claimed that Netaji — missing since August 18, 1945 — died of injuries from a plane crash near Taihoku airport. But there is no conclusive confirmation.

“People of the country and especially of Bengal, have the right to know the truth about the matter (Netaji’s disappearance),” Mamata said.

“West Bengal government has already declassified and placed in public domain (in September, 2015) many files relating to Netaji on this issue,” she wrote.

Taking a cue from the Bengal government, the Centre had declassified a clutch of files related to Netaji in 2016, but the information therein failed to shed more light on his disappearance.