NEW DELHI: The Centre had no role in rejecting the tableau of West Bengal for the Republic Day celebrations, said sources in the Modi government.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had written a strong letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in which she had expressed “shock” over the “rejection” of the state’s tableau for the Republic Day celebrations.
According to government sources, an expert committee receives the proposals for tableaux and selects or rejects them.
Without naming Mamata, the sources said that certain chief ministers are setting a wrong precedent by linking the exclusion of the proposals to “regional pride” and project it as an “insult to the people of the state by the central government”.
The sources said, “We have recently seen letters being written by state CMs about the exclusion of their state’s tableaux in the Republic Day Parade. This is unmistakably linked to regional pride and projected as an insult to the people of the state by the central government. This script also plays out almost every year.”
They said this was a wrong precedent adopted by the CMs to portray an outcome of an objective process as a flashpoint between the Centre and the states. “This goes a long way in harming the country’s federal structure. Perhaps the CMs have no positive agenda of their own that they have to resort to the same old trick using misinformation year after year,” the government sources said.
Explaining the procedure for the selection of tableaux, they said firstly it is not the Modi government which makes the decision.
The tableaux proposals received from various states and central ministries are evaluated in a series of meetings of the expert committee comprising eminent people in the field of art, culture, sculpture, music, architecture, choreography, and the likes.
The expert committee examines the proposals on the basis of theme, concept, design and visual impact before making its recommendations.
They said, “Due to time constraints, only some of the proposals can be accepted. For instance, for the Republic Day Parade 2022, a total of 56 proposals were received from states and central ministries. Out of these 56, 21 proposals have been shortlisted. It is natural for more proposals to be rejected than those accepted given the paucity of time.”
The sources confirmed that the proposals this year of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal were rejected by the Subject Expert Committee “after due process and due deliberations”.
However, they said the tableaux proposals of West Bengal were accepted through the same process and system under the same Modi government in 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2021.
“Furthermore, this year’s tableau of CPWD (Central Public Works Department) includes Netaji Subhaschandra Bose, so the question of his insult does not even arise,” the sources said.
Like West Bengal, the tableaux proposals of Kerala were accepted through the same process and system under the same Modi government in 2018 and 2021.
They said similarly, the tableaux proposals of Tamil Nadu were accepted through the same process and system under the Modi government in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Earlier, expressing shock over the Centre’s decision to exclude West Bengal’s tableau, Mamata Banerjee had written a letter to PM Modi on Sunday to express her “profound shock” and the pain of the people of the state for the exclusion of their tableaux.
She wrote in the letter: “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.”
The two-page letter further said, “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 Republic Day on the 75th year of our Independence.”
Mamata finally said in the letter: “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.”
