Hours ahead of India's 70th Independence Day, the Mamata Banerjee government in West Bengal issued "urgent" instructions to all schools and educational institutions to refrain from celebrating the anniversary in the format prescribed by the Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry. State Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said the Centre has no right to instruct others how to celebrate Independence Day and that "people of Bengal don't need lessons on patriotism from the BJP".