Narendra Modi visits Netaji’s house, shown car he used for escape

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday visited the ancestral house of freedom fighter Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at Elgin Road in Kolkata to pay homage to him on his 125th birth anniversary.

He was greeted with “Jai Shri Ram” chants by people waiting outside the Netaji Bhawan at Bhowanipore area and was received by Sugato Bose and his brother Sumantro Bose, grandnephews of Netaji.

BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya and BJP leader Chandra Bose, another grandnephew of Netaji, were not allowed to accompany Modi inside the house.

Modi was shown the “Wanderer” car, which Netaji used to escape from Kolkata to Gomoh in Dhanbad. He was also taken to the bedrooms of Netaji and his brother Sarat Chandra Bose.

The prime minister was given a quick walk-through of the museum which houses the photographs of the Azad Hind Fauj. He was shown the table used by Netaji in Singapore. Governor Jagdeep Dhankar was accompanying Modi.

Modi later visited the National Library in the city and paid floral tributes at Netaji’s statue. He admired paintings by around 100 artists on a 40-metre canvas on the sprawling lawns of Belvedere House at the National Library compound.

Later, at the Victoria Memorial Hall, Modi inaugurated an exhibition and a projection mapping show on Netaji.
Union Culture Minister Prahlad Singh Patel, who was present at the event, said Netaji’s ‘Dilli Chalo’ (march to Delhi) call had united the nation against the British rule.