Amit Shah In Bengal, Trinamool Attacks BJP Over Amartya Sen's Property

Union minister Amit Shah's visit to Bengal on Rabindranath Tagore's birth anniversary as the Centrally-run Visva Bharati evicts another Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen, became the lead point of Trinamool Congress attack on the BJP today.

Mr Sen shares a special link with Tagore, as does the University. While Visva Bharati grew from a little school Tagore established in Shantineketan, the poet had also bestowed the name "Amartya" to the grandson of a close friend.

"Amit Shah comes to pay tribute to Rabindranath but a Nobel laureate, who was named Amartya by Rabindranath Tagore is being served an eviction notice by Visva Bharati,"said Bengal minister Shashi Panja at the state's official programme to mark Tagore's  birth anniversary.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee also threw her weight in.

"Some people think Shantiniketan is Tagore's birthplace. Some people's rallies end up destroying a statue of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar," she said, in a jibe directed at BJP chief JP Nadda and Amit Shah.

Mr Shah is currently on a visit to Bengal and the first item on his itinerary today was a visit to Tagore's ancestral house in Kolkata's Jorasanko, where he paid floral tributes to the poet.

"Earlier they were confused between the janmabhoomi (birthplace) and karmabhoomi (place of work) of Tagore. At least now they know he was born at Jorasanko," Shashi Panja said today in an arch reference to a faux pas by BJP chief JP Nadda.

A few years ago, Mr Nadda had mistakenly mentioned Santineketan -- where the Visva Bharati University stands today -- as the poet's birthplace. Today the Chief Minister hinted that the BJP leaders should know about the state instead of reading out misinformation "from a cheat sheet, or a teleprompter".

Over the last week, the intelligentsia of the state, as well as the ruling Trinamool Congress,  have vocally backed the Amartya Sen, who has been embroiled in a battle with the university over several months.

The university claims the land attached to Amartya Sen's ancestral property, Pratichi  in Shantineketan,  is "illegally occupied". The University has said it would evict the economist if he failed to vacate it within the deadline.

Last week, the Calcutta High Court put a freeze against a move by Visva Bharati to take away part of the property.