Calcutta, Oct. 14: Sugata Bose, the great nephew of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, told The Telegraph from Harvard tonight he was surprised at the Centre's "selectivity" in declassifying files relating to the freedom fighter.

Bose, a Trinamul MP, added that the Narendra Modi government should have declassified all the files at one go "and that shouldn't have taken more than a week".

"That kind of selectivity would be very wrong because it goes against the very principle of freedom of information. They (the Centre) have known about the files for quite some time and they should not be dragging it. I had raised this issue in April in Parliament," the Gardiner Professor of oceanic history said.

"It's not about having a photo op with certain members of the family today. The matter has been known to him (the Prime Minister) for quite some time. They are sitting on the files," Bose added.

Referring to the communal tension across the country, Bose took a swipe at Modi for not following Netaji's "idea of Hindu-Muslim unity".

"In today's context, Modi should follow Netaji's idea of Hindu-Muslim unity and stop the spread of religious hatred in our country. If he genuinely respects Netaji, he should do that."

Bose expressed "doubts" about the Centre's claim that many of the Netaji files were with foreign governments. "I doubt it very much. How can the files of the Government of India lie with foreign governments?"

Even if the files were lying with foreign governments, he said, the Centre should not find it difficult to access them. "If there are any Netaji files lying with foreign governments like the US and the UK, obviously they will not have any problem opening the files to the Government of India. I know that these countries have opened several sensitive files about their own affairs. All the democracies of the West have proper archiving policy and I don't think there should be any difficulty in accessing the files," he said.