Kolkata: BJP national spokesperson MJ Akbar on Wednesday demanded that the West Bengal government should declassify the files on Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose lying with the state home department.
Akbar pointed out that the state government would not have to bother about the international implications of the declassified files, a reason cited by the central government for not releasing them.
"The previous central governments said that the declassification of Netaji files can have implications on international relations. The state doesn't have any such concern, so why is the state not declassifying the files? What is stopping Mamata Banerjee from doing that?" Akbar told PTI here.
Akbar echoed the demand of Netaji's grandnephew Chandra Kumar Bose who had claimed that 23 members of Netaji's family had written six times to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee requesting her to declassify the files that were with the state government, but got no response.
"Why were Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress afraid of the political ghost of Subhas Chandra Bose? There is only one reason which is the Congress government knew that if Bose had not died, then he must be in a prison in a foreign country," Akbar said.
According to Akbar, the disappearance of Netaji has caused a bigger loss to Bengal as the state lost an golden opportunity to have him at its helm.
"This is a tragedy for India but a much bigger tragedy for Bengal. Because if Subhas Chandra Bose had returned, he would have definitely been in power in Bengal, in Orissa," he said.
"His charisma and secularism had that impact. Bengal would have flourished under him. On a national level if he had been at important politics he would have been the Prime Minister of India, if not in 1957 then in 1962," he added.
