Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 18: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh wrote to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her Tamil Nadu counterpart M K Stalin on Tuesday, requesting their participation in the grand parade and stating that the decision to select tableaux for the national event was made in accordance with detailed guidelines for the event. Singh’s letter to the two states comes after Banerjee and Stalin appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for help after their tableau plans were rejected by Bengal and Tamil Nadu, respectively.
While Banerjee expressed surprise at the exclusion of West Bengal’s tableau, which focused on Subhas Chandra Bose on his 125th birthday, and said that such a move would cause “pain” to the people of her state, his Tamil Nadu counterpart stated that excluding the state’s tableau would cause “pain” to the people of his state.patriotic feelings of the people.
Earlier in the day, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman detailed the process of selecting tableaux on the microblogging site Twitter. “States, GoI ministries & PSUs send proposals for #RepublicDay tableaux every year. The duration of the Parade itself is limited. An Expert Committee of eminences from the arts shortlist from those received. For RD 2022, GoI received 56 proposals; 21 were shortlisted,” she wrote on Twitter.
“Existing criteria and proposals for selection were scrupulously followed. Since @narendramodi became @PMOIndia: 2018 & 2021: Kerala’s tableau selected. 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020 & 2021: Tamil Nadu selected. 2016, 2017, 2019 & 2021: West Bengal selected”, she added.
According to reports, states and central ministries submitted a total of 56 proposals. A total of 21 were shortlisted, and the procedure is repeated every year. Tableaux from these states have been allowed several times in the past under the Modi administration, they added.
