Ex-West Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee rejects Padma Bhushan award, says nobody told him

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Pic/AFP

Veteran CPI(M) leader and former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Tuesday rejected the Padma Bhushan award.

"I don't know anything about the Padma Bhushan award. Nobody told me about it. If I was given the Padma Bhushan award, I am rejecting it," he said in a statement.

According to CPI(M) sources, it was a decision of Bhattacharjee and also the party.

Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Hindutva poster boy late Kalyan Singh and India's first Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat who died in a helicopter crash recently, were awarded Padma Vibhushan on Tuesday, while veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and CPI(M) leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee were conferred with Padma Bhushan.

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