Centre should declassify Netaji files considering 'all factors': Congress

New Delhi: Congress on Friday said the central government should declassify files concerning Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose after taking into consideration "all the factors and the national interest".

The Party welcomed the decision of the West Bengal government to release 64 secret files relating to Bose that could help throw light on his mysterious disappearance.

"The Government of India should declassify such files considering all the factors and what is there in those files which are declassified by the Government of West Bengal," Congress general secretary Shakeel Ahmed told reporters.

Insisting that there should not be any selective leaks and there should not be any planted stories, Ahmed said any release of Bose files should be a "comprehensive" one.

The Congress leader said BJP had ridiculed the stand of the erstwhile UPA government against declassifying the Netaji files, but after the Modi dispensation assumed office, it also took the same stand.

Ahmed said that all facts would be brought before the people after reviewing the concerned files available in India and outside and taking into consideration "all the aspects and the national interest".

In Kolkata, senior Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar said the Centre is "more than welcome" to declassify files it has on Bose. "BJP is more than welcome to declassify the files," Aiyar told PTI on the sidelines of a programme.

Earlier in the day releasing the Netaji files, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said: "We made a beginning. The people should know the truth. Let the central government also declassify the files (on Netaji). Let good sense prevail on all of us. You cannot suppress the truth. Let truth come out."