West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Saturday urged the Centre to declare the birthdays of Swami Vivekananda and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose as national holidays.

Banerejee said in a tweet that she has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in this regard.

“Swami Vivekananda and Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose are national and international icons. I have written a letter to the PM urging the GOI to declare both their birthdays as national holidays,” she tweeted.

Banerjee’s letter comes on the heels of the Bose family members in Kolkata raising a similar demand that the Union government should officially declare January 23 as “Desh Prem Divas” or Patriot’s Day.

“It is time that the government acknowledges the gravity of our demand, not just to honour Netaji, but also the brave soldiers of the Azad Hind fauz who actually gave us our freedom,” Netaji’s grand nephew Chandra Kumar Bose said.

While the BJP and the Sangh Parivar has been using Swami Vivekananda has a saffron mascot, Mamata Banerjee has often quoted the Bengal icon in recent times to hit out at the saffron brigade. The two parties have been engaged in a bitter tussle to appropriate the legacy of these two icons.

While Bengal Police denied permission to BJP’s “Pratirodh Avijan” bike rally across the state to mark Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary this month, it fielded a battery of ministers who lined up at Vivekananda’s ancestral residence in north Kolkata to pay homage on January 12.

Swami Vivekananda’s birthday is on January 12 while Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s birthday is on January 23.