This is one Mamata Banerjee bouncer that the Centre has been desperately trying to duck but it keeps returning, raising stress levels in an already strained relationship. The issue at hand is declaring national holidays in memory of some of Bengal's greats.

Had the Trinamool chief had her way, four more days would have been added to the Centre's list of 17 all-India holidays.

The West Bengal Chief Minister's latest demand reached Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's desk a few days ago, asking that January 23 be declared a national holiday in commemoration of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose's birth anniversary.

This was the fourth such demand from her. The first letter arrived last year, demanding that May 8 be declared a national holiday to commemorate Rabindranath Tagore's birth anniversary, which was followed by another letter making the same case for August 8  Tagore's death anniversary.

At that point, sources say, the PM wrote back to her explaining the elaborate efforts that had been made to celebrate Tagore's 150th birth anniversary while conveying his disinclination towards declaring national holidays on such occasions.

But the PM's nuanced message seems to have been lost on Kolkata as Banerjee began the year by sending a letter demanding a national holiday for Vivekananda's birth anniversary on January 12 and followed it up with this latest letter for Bose's birth anniversary.

The Centre's message is that there are only three national holidays  Independence Day, Republic Day and Gandhi Jayanti. Besides this, there are 14 pre-notified holidays which include all the major festivals. The PMO is learnt to be of the view that this is already quite an exhaustive list and efforts should be made to subtract, rather than add to this calendar.

Banerjee, however, seems to be in no mood to concur and, regardless of the Centre's views, has continued to declare holidays in West Bengal to commemorate the state's eminent historical figures. What Delhi seems to be worried about is that the list of eminent Bengalis is quite long, and so this spate of letters could be the start of a build-up to yet another political quarrel.

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