Dev, Soham, Nusrat, Srijit and others receive this year's Banga Samman

Amid the furore over the alleged corruption in the state education department and the arrest of minister Partha Chatterjee, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen declines the government award

Dev recieves Banga Bhushan Award from Mamata Bhanerjee

It was nothing short of a galaxy at the Nazrul Mancha when a number of Tollywood stars were given this year’s Banga Samman by the Government of West Bengal on Monday. The chief minister of Bengal Mamata Banerjee handed over the trophy and certificates to the recipients.

While actor-turned politicians Nusrat Jahan and Soham Chakraborty received this year’s Mahanayak award, Rituparna Sengupta, Dev Srijit Mukherji, Iman Chakraborty, Srijato, Koushiki Chakraborty, Leena Gangopadhyay, Jeet Gannguli and several others received Bangabhushan. Kumar Sanu, Abhijeet Bhattacharya, and Debshankar Halder received Banga Bibhushan Award.

The award ceremony took place in the middle of the statewide furore over corruption in the government’s education ministry in SSC Scam. On Saturday, the former education minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested by ED after Rs 20 cr cash was retrieved from his aide Arpita Mukherjee’s apartment. A day-long raid also took place at the minister’s Kolkata residence throughout Friday.

After the raid and the amount of cast recovered was reported, several celebrities, including director Anik Dutta and Srijit Mukherji, took to their social media handle to condemn the event. Srijit wrote, “No wonder the Law caught up the unscrupulous and heartless perpetrators. It is not easy to avert your Nemesis if you are dealing with 20 cr worth of broken dreams, duped sighs and aborted aspirations.” Anik, known to be close to the Left-wingers, appreciated his post. However, after Srijit went to take the award, Anik commented that he withdrew his previous appreciation post. He said it was too early to comment.

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen was supposed to receive one of the most prestigious Banga Samman awards. However, he declined the award. All the other recipients were in attendance at Nazrul Mancha.

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