‘Profoundly shocked’: Mamata writes to PM Modi over Centre's move to reject Bengal tableau from R-day parade

New Delhi, Jan 16: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday expressed shock over the central government decision to exclude West Bengal's proposed tableau for the Republic Day parade. Banerjee also said that no reason was cited for the tableau's rejection.

In a letter, Mamata Banerjee urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to reconsider the decision as people of the state would be ''pained'' by the move.

''I have been profoundly shocked and hurt by the decision of the Government of India to abruptly exclude the proposed tableau of the Government of West Bengal from the ensuing Republic Day Parade. It is even more baffling for us that the tableau was rejected without assigning any reasons or justifications,'' Banerjee said in a two-page letter to Modi.

''I may like to inform you that all the people of West Bengal are deeply pained by this attitude of the central government. It is shocking to find that the contribution of its valiant freedom fighters finds no place in the nation's ceremony to celebrate the occasion of the Republic Day on the 75th year of our Independence. ''I urge you to reconsider the decision and include the tableau of freedom fighters from West Bengal in the Republic Day parade on the 75th year of our Independence,'' Banerjee added.

The Bengal would have carried portraits of Vidyasagar, Rabindranath Tagore, Vivekananda, Chittaranjan Das, Sri Aurobindo, Matangini Hazra, Birsa Munda, Nazrul Islam, Mamata wrote.

This is not the first time West Bengal's tableau proposal got rejected. In 2015, 2017 and 2020, West Bengal's tableau proposals were rejected.