On Rabindranath Tagore’s birth anniversary, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee took a dig at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for failing to retrieve the Indian polymath’s Nobel Prize medallion that was stolen back in 2004. 

Speaking at a cultural event outside the Rabindra Sadan in Kolkata on Monday, Banerjee marked Tagore’s 161st birth anniversary. 

“We sing the lines from our national anthem penned by Tagore- Punjab, Sindhu, Gujarat, Maratha, Dravida, Utkala, Bangla- when divisive forces speak of dividing people,” she said in the address, according to The Times of India. 

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The Bengal CM then remembered Tagore’s contribution to poetry, art, and literature, while talking about the robbery of his Nobel medal that took place on March 25, 2004. 

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“I still feel sad that the stolen Nobel medal and citation have not yet been recovered. It has been a long time. It happened during the Left Front regime and the CBI was probing the case. But the CBI has probably closed the case. I don’t even know whether all the evidence is still there,” she said. 

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“This is an insult to us and it pains us a lot that an award of such significance was stolen from us. But Rabindranath can never be forgotten even though the Nobel Prize may have been lost. He has inscribed the Nobel Prize in our hearts,” Banerjee said at the event.

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Her remarks were perceived as a subtle attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government at the Centre. 

Rabindranath Tagore was born on May 7, 1861, in Kolkata. In 1913, he won the Nobel Prize for ‘Gitanjali’ a poetry collection that revolves around inner desires, love and mental conflicts.