Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said that out of 29 proposals for tableaux from states and Union Territories, 12 were accepted.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has written to the chief ministers of West Bengal and Tamil Nadu — Mamata Banerjee and MK Stalin — respectively clarifying their allegations about the tableaux from their states being “purposely ignored” for the Republic Day parade
The defence minister wrote back saying that out of 29 proposals from states and Union Territories, 12 were accepted.
Responding to Banerjee’s letter written on December 16 stating that the tableau with the Subhash Chandra Bose theme was excluded from the parade, the defence minister wrote that keeping in mind the contribution Netaji, the government has decided to kickstart Republic Day celebrations from January 23, his birth anniversary.
The defence minister said in his letter, “I would like to bring it your kind attention that there exists a well-established system for selection of tableaux for participation in the Republic Day parade, as per which the Ministry of Defence invites proposals for tableaux from all states/UTs and central ministries/departments.”
Rajnath Singh stated that tableaux proposals received from various states/UTs and central ministries/departments are evaluated in a series of meetings of the experts’ committee, comprising eminent personalities from the fields of art, culture, painting, sculpture, music, architecture, choreography, etc. “
The experts’ committee examines the proposals on the basis of theme, concept, design and its visual impact before making its recommendations. As per the time slot allotted for tableaux in the overall duration of the parade, shortlisting of tableaux is done by the committee.”
He informed Mamata Banerjee that West Bengal tableaux were part of 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2021 parades and pointed out to Stalin that Tamil Nadu had representation in 2017, 2019, 2020, and 2021.
