The Centre has yet again rejected West Bengal’s Republic Day tableau. This time, the theme of the tableau was Netaji and INA.
The state government has received a verbal communication in this regard but no reason has been given by the Centre for rejecting the state’s tableau. “As the country is celebrating 75 years of Independence, we designed our tableau keeping this in mind with Netaji in the forefront as we are celebrating his 125th birth anniversary this year. Like all states, we had submitted our proposal to the Ministry of Defence. The committee under the Ministry that deals with this usually gives their suggestions that are incorporated by the states and models are revised accordingly. We had reached the model stage. After which, we were not informed anything in this regard. Now, why we were not selected is not known to us as the Ministry does not give any explanation,” said an official of the state information and cultural affairs department.
This is the fourth time in recent years that West Bengal’s tableau has been rejected. In 2020, the state had given three proposals for the state tableaux for the January 26 parade ~ 1. Kanyashree, 2. Save Green, stay clean, 3. Jol Dhoro Jol Bhoro. But all proposals were rejected. In 2017, the state had sent its tableau proposal for Unity in Harmony but it was rejected and chief minister Mamata Banerjee herself had said that it was cancelled deliberately and due to political reasons. In 2015, Bengal’s Kanyashree tableau was rejected on the ground that the Central government has a similar project named ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhao’.