Improper invite for Netaji Subash Chandra Bose's statue unveiling: Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has slammed the Centre for 'not maintaining protocol' while inviting her to the function where PM Narendra Modi unveiled a statue of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose at India Gate on Thursday. Banerjee said that a junior bureaucrat invited her.

"I got a letter yesterday from an undersecretary, saying the PM 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," Banerjee asked. "Does the Union Minister for Culture think he is such a big figure, he could not even write an invitation letter to me," asked an angry Banerjee. She said that she had already garlanded Netaji's statue in Kolkata before starting a party programme at Kolkata's Netaji Indoor Stadium.

IGNCA member secretary Sachchidanand Joshi claimed, "the process of decolonisation of the Indian mind has begun with the unveiling of the Bose statue, where once the statue of King George V stood". He said views were taken from family members of Bose and those associated with Azad Hind Fauj to ensure even the 'minutest details about the veteran were accurate', he told ET.