After actor-turned-politician Kangana Ranaut claimed that Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose was the first prime minister of India, the freedom fighter’s grandnephew Chandra Kumar Bose urged the BJP leader “not to distort history for her political gains or to appease her party leadership”.
Kangana Ranaut is BJP’s Lok Sabha candidate from Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi.
At a recent event during campaigning for the elections, she said, “Pehle mujhe ye baat aaj clear karne dijiye. Jab hume azaadi mili toh the first Prime Minister of India, Subhash Chandra Bose, woh kahan gae?”
To this, in an exclusive conversation with Hindustan Times (HT), Chandra Kumar Bose said Kangana’s statement on the liberator of India, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, is incomplete.
“Netaji was certainly the head of state, the prime minister of a united, undivided India. The important factor is united and undivided, which she missed out,” he told HT.
Bose added that Netaji was also the last prime minister of an undivided and united India.
“You need to study Netaji’s life and times, his books that are written by him. I would request not only Kangana, but all persons who are interested in Netaji, to study his own writings to understand his concept of India, ideology and vision for the country.”
Bose was BJP’s vice president in West Bengal in 2016 and had quit the party last year.
Netaji’s grand nephew asserted that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was certainly the first prime minister of independent and ‘divided’ India.
“In order to say that Subhash Bose was the first prime minister and not completing the sentence by saying ‘of undivided India’, it gives somehow a message that you are trying to challenge the first prime minister of the divided dominion of India. These are two different matters,” he said.
Bharat vs India
Chandra Kumar Bose said that the Constitution mentions ‘India, that is Bharat’, and there is no difference between the two.
“Whether you address the nation as ‘Bharat’ or ‘India’, it makes no difference. But it will make a difference if we implement the concept of ‘Bharatiya’, that unfortunately we have failed,” he told HT.
He further said that Netaji would be dismayed seeing the present situation in our country, the division among communities.
“I completely hold the political leadership of our country responsible for the communal feeling,” Bose’s said.
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Published: 21 Apr 2024, 11:03 PM IST