Summary:
New Delhi, Jan 25 (PTI) Former Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Hindutva poster boy late Kalyan Singh, India"s first Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and former West Bengal CM and CPI(M) leader Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee were selected on Tuesday for this year"s Padma awards.
Within an hour of the announcement, Bhattacharjee said that he rejected the Padma Bhushan award.
Official sources, however, said the ailing leader"s wife was informed in the morning of the government decision to award him Padma Bhushan and that no one from his family objected to it.
Kalyan Singh and General Rawat who died in a helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu last month were conferred Padama Vibushan, the country"s second-highest civilian award, along with 88-year-old Indian classical vocalist Prabha Atre and the late Radheshyam Khemka, former chairman of Geeta Press, which publishes Hindu religious books.
The Babri Masjid was demolished when Singh was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, where assembly polls are scheduled in February-March.
He resigned following the demolition, even as the then Union government dismissed the BJP dispensation in the state.