At a rally in Kolkata, Banerjee said she had received a letter on Wednesday from a bureaucrat informing her about the event.
Kolkata: Hours before the inauguration of the Netaji statue in Delhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said she will not attend the programme as the invite to her was “not proper”.
At a rally in Kolkata, Banerjee said she had received a letter on Wednesday from a bureaucrat informing her about the event. “I got a letter yesterday from an undersecretary yesterday (Wednesday) saying PM Modi will inaugurate the Netaji statue at 7 pm and you must be there at 6 pm. As if I am their servant. How can an undersecretary write to a Chief Minister? Why has the culture minister become so big?”
She also said that in protest she has garlanded a Netaji statue in Kolkata in the afternoon to offer her respects.
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Interestingly, the statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, which will be unveiled by the Prime Minister, is being installed in the same place where a hologram statue of Netaji was unveiled earlier this year on Parakram Diwas (January 23).
“The statue, made of granite, is a fitting tribute to the immense contribution of Netaji to our freedom struggle, and would be a symbol of the country’s indebtedness to him. Crafted by Arun Yogiraj, who was the main sculptor, the 28 feet tall statue has been carved from a monolithic granite stone and weighs 65 MT,” the statement added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also inaugurate the new look of Delhi’s Central Vista. The mega redevelopment project has a new Parliament building, a common central secretariat and a revamped three-km-long iconic Kartavya Path between the Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate. Work on the redevelopment project began in December 2020.