Former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee refused to accept the Padma Bhushan award.?The veteran CPI(M) leader was the chief minister of West Bengal from 2000to 2011.?
According to Bhattacharjee, he was unaware of the award.
"I know nothing about this award. No one has told me anything about it. If they have decided to offer Padma Bhushan to me, I refuse to accept it," Bhattacharjee said in a statement.
While explaining the reasons behind his refusal, the CPI(M) said the party's policy was not to accept such state awards.
"Comrade Buddhadeb Bhattacharya who was nominated for the Padma Bhushan award has declined to accept it. The CPI(M) policy has been consistent in declining such awards from the State. Our work is for the people not for awards. Comrade EMS (Namboodiripad) who was earlier offered an award had declined it." the CPI(M) tweeted.
This year, legendary Bengali singer Sandhya Mukherjee also known as Sandhya Mukhopadhyay has also refused to accept the Padma Award.
Daughter Soumi Sengupta said Mukherjee told the senior official who called from Delhi that she was not willing to be named as a Padma Shri recipient on being contacted seeking her consent to being named a Padma Shri in the Republic Day awards list.
"At the age of 90, with a singing career spanning over about eight decades, being chosen for Padma Shri is demeaning for a singer of her stature," Sengupta said.
"Padma Shri is more deserving for a junior artiste, not `Gitasree' Sandhya Mukhopadhay. Her family and all the lovers of her songs feel," the daughter said.
They however are not the first to turn down Padma award offers.
Another CPIM leader, EMS Namboodiripad, the first Chief Minister of Kerala too had turned down the Padma Award.
EMS was chosen for the Padma Vibhushan award along with BJP's AB Vajpayee in 1992 by the then Congress government led by PV Narasimha Rao. While Vajpayee received the award, the Marxist veteran declined it.
Former diplomat PN Haksar was offered the award in 1973 for, among other services, his crucial diplomatic role in brokering the Indo-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation and the Shimla Agreement, but declined as "Accepting an award for work done somehow causes an inexplicable discomfort to me.
Swami Ranganathananda declined the award in 2000 as it was conferred to him as an individual and not to the Ramakrishna Mission.
Former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal who was awarded Padma Vibhushan in 2015 returned the honour in December 2020 in support of the farmers' protests.
A total of 11 people have refused to accept Padma Bhushan awards so for.
Some of the prominent names include Bengali theatre activist Sisir Kumar Bhaduri, and Sociologist GS Ghurye.
While journalist Nikhil Chakravarty rejected the award in 1990 stating that the "journalists should not be identified with the establishment," historian Romila Thapar refused to accept the award twice, for the first time in 1992, and later again in 2005, stating that she would accept awards only "from academic institutions or those associated with my professional work."
Another journalist, K Subrahmanyam also refused his 1999 bestowal citing that "bureaucrats and journalists should not accept any award from the government because they are more liable to be favoured.
In 2013, playback singer S Janaki refused to accept her award and stated that "the award has come late in her five-and-half-decade long career."?
A total of seven people who were conferred with the Padma Bhushan had returned it later, due to different reasons.
A total of 17 people had refused Padma Shri awards till now, while ten recipients have returned them.
It is not just Padma awards that people have rejected. Three people had rejected Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honor.
The first to do so was freedom fighter and India's first Minister of Education Maulana Abul Kalam Azad who argued that those who were on selection committees for national honours should not themselves receive them. He received a posthumous Bharat Ratna in 1992.
In 1992, the family of Subhas Chandra Bose were contacted about accepting a posthumous Bharat Ratna on his behalf; however, they declined it saying the length of time it had taken the government to recognize him.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's predecessor Jyoti Basu had refused Bharat Ratna when his name was doing rounds in 2008.?
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