NEW DELHI, Aug 8:
President Pranab Mukherjee will host a reception and felicitate freedom fighters here tomorrow on the occasion of the 71st anniversary of the Quit India Movement.
121 freedom fighters from across the country would be felicitated at the ‘At Home’ to be held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
“Freedom fighters from across the country will be invited to attend a reception (At home) at the Rashtrapati Bhavan where they would be honoured and felicitated by the President in the presence of various dignitaries of the country,” a press release issued today by the Rashtrapati Bhavan said.
As many as 121 freedom fighters from Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Daman & Diu, and NCT of Delhi among others will be attending the function, it said.
The President of India has been hosting ‘At home’ function in the Rashtrapati Bhavan since 2003 to mark the anniversary of the Quit India Movement on August 9 of every year in honour of freedom fighters, it said.
The Quit India Movement was launched on August 9, 1942.
On August 8, 1942, the All India Congress Committee formally adopted in Bombay a resolution calling on the British to ‘Quit India’.
“The next day national leaders including Gandhiji were arrested by the British. From that very day i.E. August 9, a spontaneous civil disobedience movement in response to Gandhiji’s call for immediate independence spread all over the country,” the release said. (PTI)