Ex-Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee rejects Padma Bhushan award

Veteran CPI(M) leader and former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Tuesday rejected the Padma Bhushan award. "I know nothing about this award. No one has told me anything about it. If they have decided to offer Padma Bhushan to me, I refuse to accept it," he said in a statement.

According to CPI(M) sources, it was a decision of Bhattacharjee and also the party.

Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Hindutva poster boy late Kalyan Singh and India's first Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat who died in a helicopter crash recently, were awarded Padma Vibhushan on Tuesday, while veteran Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and CPI(M) leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee were conferred with Padma Bhushan.