Poila Baishak which is the Bengali New Year Day will be celebrated as the official Foundation Day of West Bengal. The West Bengal Legislative Assembly passed the resolution this afternoon.
‘Banglar Mati Banglar Jol’, a poem composed by Rabindra Tagore in 1905 to protest against Lord Curzon’s decision to partition Bengal is to be adopted as the state song.
Addressing the Assembly on Thursday, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the resolution on the Foun- dation Day became nec- essary as the Centre issued an order which stated that
Thursday.
the foundation day of Bengal would be observed on 20 June.
“We had raised objection and wrote to Raj Bhavan. But they refused and the day was observed at a function there. If we had remained silent, then our future generation would have learnt a distorted history,”she said. Miss Banerjee said: “States like Bihar, Kerala, Andra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Jharkhand have their foundation day as the states were created during the British period or after Independence. In a most unfortunate incident the British divided Bengal. Thousand of people lost their lives, lakhs became homeless.” Criticising the leader of the Opposition, Subendhu Adhikari, who said the BJP would request the Governor not to clear the resolution regarding the Foundation Day, Miss Banerjee said: “We care little whe- ther the Governor signs the resolution or not, People will observe the day as the foundation day of Bengal.”
Coming down heavily on the BJP, the Chief Minister said: “It is most unfortunate that we will have to learn from those who did not take part in the Independence movement. It is they who killed Mahatma Gandhi and it is a tragedy that they are trying to teach us history.”