New Delhi: Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose may this year be bestowed with the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian honour, official sources said on Sunday.
Bharatiya Janata Party leaders have in the past demanded that the Bharat Ratna be bestowed upon Vajpayee.
The sources said the announcement might be made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence Day speech.
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s name is also doing the rounds for the coveted award.
The Bharat Ratna can be given to a maximum of three people in a particular year.
The recommendation of names for the Bharat Ratna is made to the president by the prime minister himself.
A senior home ministry official said that four days back the government mint had been asked to make for five medallions of the Bharat Ratna.
“But ordering five medallions does not mean that five persons will be bestowed with Bharat Ratna. This is to keep adequate number of medallions in reserve,” he said.
Family disapproves idea
Meanwhile, amidst speculation that the award may be conferred on Netaji, his grandnephew on Sunday claimed that a majority of his family members did not approve of the idea.
Chandra Kumar Bose, Netaji’s grandnephew, claimed that most family members were opposed to the conferment of the award and instead demanded that the mystery of his disappearance be solved first.
“Netaji has been missing since 1945. When you award him with Bharat Ratna posthumously, you have to say when he died, but where is the evidence? The best way to honour him is to declassify government files which can reveal the truth behind his disappearance,” Bose said.
He told PTI that he had spoken to around 60 family members of the great leader, none of whom was willing to accept the award on his behalf.
“All of us feel that Bharat Ratna is not the appropriate award for him. None of us will go and accept the award,” Bose said.
The family and members of the Open Platform for Netaji had recently written to Modi demanding formation of a Special Investigation Team under the guidance of a sitting judge of the Supreme Court to investigate into Netaji’s disappearance.
When under house arrest by the British, Netaji had escaped from India in 1941 to seek international support for India’s freedom struggle.
He went missing in 1945, giving birth to India’s most debated and lingering mystery ever. The Mukherjee Commission which inquired into the disappearance had rejected the opinion that he died in a plane crash in Taiwan on August 18, 1945.
