Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's descendants, who have been campaigning for declassification of secret files on the nationalist leader, on Tuesday exuded confidence of a positive outcome after getting an assurance from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the issue.
A day after Netaji's grand-nephew, Surya Kumar Bose, met the visiting Modi in Berlin, a section of the Bose family was certain their campaign would bear fruit.
"The prime minister gave Surya a patient hearing for more than 40 minutes. Besides looking into the snooping controversy, he has also assured that he will take positive steps towards declassification of the secret files on Netaji," said Surya Bose's brother and family spokesperson Chandra Kumar Bose.
"The prime minister has assured that the distorted history concerning Netaji will be rectified. It is now a well established fact that Netaji did not die in the alleged plane-crash of 1945. To rectify the history of his death and to know what actually happened to him, all the secret documents must be made public. We are hopeful of positive action by Modi," said Chandra Kumar.
A section of the Bose family and Netaji enthusiasts during the day took out a rally in the city condemning the alleged snooping on family members of the revolutionary leader by successive Congress governments and demanded a judicial probe.
Attended by 100 odd people, the rally also demanded declassification of about 64 files said to be with the West Bengal government and over 100 files with the various central government departments including the prime minister's office.
Chandra Kumar, son of Netaji's nephew Amiya Nath Bose, also slammed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for trying to "play politics" over Netaji.
"All these years she (Banerjee) did not utter a single word on Netaji, but now has been raising the issue of secret files in her bid to corner the central government. If she is so much concerned, why does her government continue to sit on 64 files on Netaji," asked Chandra Kumar.
He said repeated communications to the chief minister urging declassification of the files has yielded no results.
While he praised Modi for showing a positive intent on the issue, Chandra Kumar said it was imperative to transform that intent into action at the earliest.
"The people of this country want to know what happened to their leader whose efforts led to the country's independence. If they can't do anything to reveal that truth, then be it the chief minister or the prime minister, they have no right to be in power," he added.
