Gogoi seeks Bharat Ratna for Bhupen Hazarika

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to honour the state’s cultural icon Bhupen Hazarika with the Bharat Ratna.

The chief minister, in a letter to the prime minister, requested him to confer the country’s highest civilian honour to Hazarika posthumously.

“I have written to the Prime Minister today asking the latter to consider Hazarika for Bharat Ratna. I will also personally take up the matter with him,” Gogoi said in a statement in Guwahati.

Gogoi had also moved the then prime minister Manmohan Singh on the matter in 2011.

The demand to honour Hazarika with the Bharat Ratna was raised by the state legislative Assembly and his fans across the state and outside, after his death in November 2011.

Hazarika was conferred the second highest civilian honour Padma Vibhushan in 2012, the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Padma Shree in 1977.

He received the Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 1987 and was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke award for lifetime contribution to development of Indian cinema in 1993.

PTI