Bhubaneswar, Jan 23

Odisha celebrated the 117th birth anniversary of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, one of the prominent leaders of India's freedom struggle, Thursday with floral tributes, devotional songs, meetings and rallies, officials said.

Leaders of political parties visited the Cuttack city, about 26 km from here, where Bose was born in 1987. They paid tribute to the freedom fighter by putting garlands on his statue.

Thousands of people, including school children, also visited the Janakinath Bhavan, the ancestral house of Bose, now a museum, to have a glance of the rare furniture and photographs of the family.

The other main attraction of the museum was a sand sculpture created by an artist.

Prominent among those who visited the museum and paid tributes to Netaji's statue included Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh and ministers and senior officials of the state government.

Statues of Bose were also garlanded in other cities of the state, including Bhubaneswar.

People from a cross-section of the society, including social activists and school children, organised processions in different places.

Special meetings, rallies, and cultural programmes were organised in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.

Netaji spent his early childhood in Cuttack. He studied at the Ravenshaw Collegiate School and later went to Calcutta to pursue higher studies.

By:IANS