‘Tell me like your sister’: Mamata Banerjee approaches Amartya Sen amid ‘land grabbing’ charges


West Bengal Prime Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote to Amartya Sen on Friday, expressing his solidarity with the Nobel Prize winner after his name emerged among those allegedly occupying land belonging to the prestigious Visva-Bharati University, the news agency reported. ANI. In an apparent reference to the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Banerjee wrote that some “nouveau invaders” in Visva-Bharati “have now begun to raise surprising and completely unfounded accusations.”

“I write this letter to express my surprise and anguish at some recent events, as I read about them in the media, alluding to their ancestral ties in Santiniketan,” Banerjee said in his letter to Senator Banerjee also mentioned the Sen family’s ties to Santiniketan . , the location of Visva-Bharati University, stating that it is a family “woven into Santiniketan culture and fabric, inalienably”.

Doing a veiled inquiry at the BJP, Banerjee also noted how “sore” she is over these “shocking and unsubstantiated” allegations about Sen’s family properties. He added that he wanted to express his solidarity with him in his battles against the “fanaticism of the majority” in the country. The West Bengal CM then urged Sen to count her as his “sister and friend”, adding that he should not be intimidated by these accusations. “We will get over it,” he said in his letter.

Banerjee’s letter to Sen comes a day after the BJP accused her of “skipping” the university’s centennial year celebrations, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed. The Prime Minister’s Trinamool Congress (TMC) responded, claiming that she was “not invited” to the ceremony.

The episode has become the latest high point between the two parties, as the BJP aims to defeat the TMC in next year’s assembly elections to end Banerjee’s 10-year term as prime minister and, in the process, form their first government in West Bengal. .

Visva-Bharati University was established on December 23, 1924 by India’s first Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore.

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