West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee addresses a press conference at her residence, in Kolkata, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023.
Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday criticised the authorities for not inscribing the name of Rabindranath Tagore in the plaques of UNESCO ‘World Heritage Site’ at Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan and warned of widespread demonstrations there if those were not replaced by Friday morning.
'It is only for Tagore that Santiniketan got the UNESCO tag and you have removed his name from the plaques. We were silent because of the Durga Puja celebrations. If you do not remove the plaques and put up new ones with the Nobel Laureate's name by 10am tomorrow, our people will launch a demonstration holding Kobiguru's photos to their chests,' Banerjee told reporters at a press conference here.
A huge controversy was triggered after the university authorities put up marble plaques bearing the names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is also the chancellor of the varsity, and vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty, but did not have any mention of Tagore. Santiniketan was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List on September 17.