Will strip Bharat Ratna if Vajpayee says: Amartya Sen.
India’s opposition BJP party leader and member of Parliament Chandan Mitra demanded today the stripping off the Bharat Ratna award from nobel laureate Amartya Sen after the economist criticized Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s model of governance in the state and did not want to see him as a prime minister of India as he lacks secular credentials.
Sen in response offered to return the Bharat Ratna if Atal Bihari Vajpayee asks him for it.
The ruling Congress party said Mitra’s comment reflects the fascist mentality of the party.
On a TV channel Sen said Mitra has turned to be oblivion that the award was given by the BJP-led government and handed over by the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Sen added, during the BJP-led NDA government he had several discussions with few BJP leaders like L k Advani, Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Jaitley too.
Mitra said Sen is not even a voter in India and wondered whether such citizen should speak either for or against any leader or party here.
Information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari has also hit out at Mitra as well as BJP for such attack on Sen.