Jogen lashes out at Somnath

SANTINIKETAN: A day after former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee questioned Visva-Bharati's role in maintaining sanctity of the campus, the apparently dormant activists, who once led an agitation to save the 'khoai' region, raised their voices against Chatterjee's 'baseless' comments.
Veteran painter Jogen Chowdhury, who spearheaded the agitation with Mahasweta Devi against rampant construction of buildings in the khoai region, said promoters were allowed to construct highrises during Chatterjee's tenure as chairman of the Sriniketan Santiniketan Development Authority (SSDA)."We still stick to our stand on Chatterjee's (in)action as the SSDA chairman. He has no sense to understand Santiniketan's sentiment as he was brought up in some foreign culture. To him, 'khoai' may be a ghost but it is inseparable from Santiniketan," Chowdhury said.
On Sunday, Chatterjee had slammed Visva-Bharati vice-chancellor Rajat Kanta Roy when the latter spoke of multi-storied buildings in Santiniketan. "You should not mention the khoai issue here. You are obsessed with the khoai ghost. You are still haunted by this matter. Let the khoai ghost leave your head," Chatterjee had said.
However, Chowdhury hit back on Monday, saying, "Promoters were allowed to construct buildings and encroach waterbodies during his tenure. The environment was destroyed and poor villagers were deprived of their rights. Since he is a lawyer, he always tries to establish a lie as the truth. He likes to be with power always."
When asked whether they would again raise the environment issue with the new government, Chowdhury said answered in the affirmative. , "Obviously, we expect a lot from this pro-people government. The environment department and concerned committees of the pervious government did not help us because they could not go against Somnath Chatterjee. Now there is no such hurdle. We shall make demand to clear all barriers around the Lahabandh waterbody."
Susanto Tagore, a descendent of the Tagore family and the main plaintiff in Kolkata High Court and Supreme Court case, said, "Somnath Chatterjee has no moral right to advise the vice-chancellor regarding height of building. At Goalpara, housing complex had been constructed on khoai soil."
On Saturday, Chatterjee 'advised' the vice-chancellor to talk to Amartya Sen to understand what Khoai exactly means. He went to that extent to say that the Visva-Bharati authority had failed to stop selling of liquor in their jurisdiction. Though a number of senior Visva-Bharati officials, including vice-chancellor Roy, registrar Manimukut Mitra and CPRO Amitabha Chowdhury, were present there, they did not protest. But on Monday, Amitabha Chowdhury clarified there was no 'hooch shop' in their jurisdiction.