The Opposition parties took a dig at Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Deb after he reportedly said that poet Rabindranath Tagore returned his Nobel Prize in protest against the atrocities committed by the British.
Tagore had in fact renounced the knighthood conferred by the British and not the Nobel Prize for Literature, which was awarded in 1913.
A video shows the Chief Minister making the remark at a function organised to mark the birth anniversary of Tagore in Udaipur.
His earlier statements — that internet and satellites existed in the ‘Mahabharata era’ and that Diana Hayden was not worthy of the Miss World beauty pageant title — had triggered a row.
On Friday, the Congress and the CPI(M) slammed Mr. Deb for his repeated blunders. “Who does not know that Tagore renounced knighthood to show his strong protest against the massacre the British committed at the Jallianwala Bagh in Punjab in 1919,” Congress leader Rahul Saha told The Hindu .
(With PTI inputs)
