New Delhi (TIP)- Former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Tuesday, Jan 25,  declined to accept the Padma Bhushan award shortly after the Union ministry of home affairs released the list of the Padma awardees for 2022. Bhattacharjee, 77, and veteran actor Victor Banerjee were among the 17 people named for the Padma Bhushan from West Bengal. To be sure, a third Padma Bhushan recipient, Ustad Rashid Khan, lives in Bengal but in the home ministry list, is classified under Uttar Pradesh where he was born.

“I do not know anything about the Padma Bhushan award. Nobody said anything to me about this. If I have been given the award, then I refuse it,” Bhattacharjee said in a short statement circulated by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or CPI(M). Bhattacharjee was the chief minister from 2000 to 2011. The former chief minister has been unwell for some time and never leaves home. He was treated for Covid-19 last year.

Here is a list of people who have earlier refused to accept such awards over various reasons:

–        Author Gita Mehta refused to accept the Padma Shri conferred on her in 2019 for contributions to literature and education, citing the general election later that year. She said the timing of the award might be misconstrued, causing embarrassment both to the government and herself. Meha, who is Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik’s sister, said she believed the award was “a way to lure in Biju Janata Dal’s support by the Bharatiya Janata Party.”

–        Journalist Virendra Kapoor, who was jailed during the Emergency in the 1970s, refused to accept the Padma award in 2016, saying he has not accepted anything from any government and did not believe in taking anything from it.

–        Tamil writer and director Bahuleyan Jeyamohan also declined the Padma Shri in 2016 as he did not want to be labelled “a Hindutva sympathiser”.

–        Playback singer Sistla Janaki refused to accept the Padma Bhushan in 2013, saying the recognition was late and her family believed only a Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award, would do justice to her reputation.

Source: HT