Netaji’s grand nephew Chandra Bose joins BJP

Chandra Bose, the grand nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, joined the BJP in the presence of party president Amit Shah during a public rally at Howrah on Monday.

Earlier, talking to reporters after meeting Amit Shah, Bose said that he’ll reveal his reason for joining BJP once it happens.

Hours before Shah’s rally, sources said that Bose may become a candidate for the Lok Sabha polls from West Bengal. Bose will also be a prominent face in the party’s campaign in the state that has millions of Netaji fans who believe that Netaji did not die in the 1945 air crash in Taipei’s Taihoku.

BJP leaders indicated to HT that the party may highlight Bose’s induction into the party and the declassification of Netaji files which are with the Centre in the run-up to the assembly polls in West Bengal. Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the digital copies of 100 files related to Netaji on his birth anniversary on Saturday.

Bose is the one of the most vocal among a section of Netaji’s family members who oppose the theory that he died in the air crash in Taihoku in August 1945. Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP Sugato Bose, who is also a professor of history at Harvard University, and his mother Krishna Bose, a former Lok Sabha MP from Trinamool, think that Netaji was killed in the air crash.

Read | PM releases Netaji files; Mamata wants ‘leader of nation’ title for Bose

He has met Modi more than once in the past few months to press for the full declassification of files on Netaji and spoke highly of the PM’s efforts to do the same. Bose has also demanded in public that Modi should speak to leaders in a few countries such as Japan, Russia and the UK to gain access to files on Netaji for a final solution to the mysterious disappearance of the leader.

Ironically, Bose will be campaigning against chief minister Mamata Banerjee who also believes that Netaji did not die in the 1945 air crash.

Bose, who used to work for Tata Steel, lives in Kolkata with his wife.