Dilip Ghosh, BJP state president in West Bengal, on Tuesday launched a scathing attack against Nobel laureate Amartya Sen amid the recent Visva-Bharati University row.

Hitting professor Sen below the belt, Ghosh said that the former didn’t have any moral right to speak anything about West Bengal because he married thrice.

Advertisement

“I don’t want to attack personally to a person who has married three women of three different faiths. He has no moral right to say anything,” Ghosh was seen saying on Bengali news channel ABP Ananda.

“He has fled the country. He is never seen with the people of this country. He was nowhere to be found during a crisis like Amphan or pandemic. We are not here to take moral lesson from such a person,” the Medinipur MP added.

A debate has been stirred in West Bengal after Visva-Bharati University VC alleged that Professor Sen – an allumni of the institution – had identified himself as “Nobel laureate Amartya Sen”. A claim refuted by the Bharat Ratna.

The situation escalated further when VBU authorities wrote to the West Bengal government on Thursday, claiming that the internationally-famed economist had illegally registered a part of the university’s land under his own name.

Mamata Banerjee, the West Bengal Chief Minister, took the matter on her own hands and penned down a letter to Professor Sen. She said that the accusations had been levelled against him because he “isn’t inclined towards BJP’s ideology”.

“We all salute Amartya Sen. Just because he isn’t inclined towards BJP’s ideology, they’re levelling such allegations against him,” Banerjee said.

“We all know about your family’s deep and organic bonds with Santiniketan. Your maternal grandfather, revered scholar Kshitimohan Sen, was one of the early leading settlers in Santiniketan, while your father Ashutosh Sen, a noted educationist and public administrator, had his famed house Pratichi built in Santiniketan about eight decades ago. Yours has been a family weaved in the culture and fabric of Santiniketan, inalienably.”

Reacting to her letter, Professor Sen wrote back to Banerjee and thanked her for standing beside him.

In a short email, he wrote, “I am very happy indeed to get your supportive letter. I am not only most touched, but also very reassured that despite the busy life you have to lead, you can find time for reassuring people under attack. Your strong voice, along with your full understanding of what is going on, is, for me, a tremendous source of strength.”