Time Digital Report: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has asked her ministerial colleagues to stage a sit-in outside Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen's house in Santiniketan in protest of the Visva-Bharati university's eviction order, a senior West Bengal government official said.
At a cabinet meeting in Kolkata on Tuesday, Mamata asked Minister for Small and Medium Industries Chandranath Sinha to lead the protest which will be joined by Education Minister Bratya Basu and Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim.
Mamata asked the ministers not to move from the spot even if the university authorities send bulldozers to take possession of the land.
Bauls and other folk artists from Birbhum district must be involved in the demonstration, and various cultural programs should be organised there, she told the ministers, according to the official.
Singer Kabir Suman and painter Subhaprasanna will also join the programme on May 6 and 7, the official said, quoting Mamata.
Last week, Mamata said she would start a sit-in demonstration in Santiniketan over the issue.
Visva-Bharati had sent an eviction notice to Sen on April 19, asking him to vacate 13 decimals of the 1.38 acres land of his residence within May 6. The university maintains Amartya Sen is in possession of 1.38 acres of land on the Santiniketan campus, which is in excess of his legal entitlement of 1.25 acres.
Sen, on the other hand, has claimed most of the land he is holding in the Santiniketan campus was purchased from the market by his father while some other plots were taken on lease.
