Netaji kin undecided on quitting Presidency group

Kolkata, April 2 (IANS) Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose's grandnephew and Harvard University professor Sugata Bose Wednesday said he would not decide in haste on resigning as the chairman of the Presidency University's mentor group as demanded by a section of students.

His statement came after he sought Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen's opinion on the matter.

Sen, a professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard, is a part of the mentor group and officiates as the adviser to the chair.

Bose had to court criticism from the students' body led by the Independents' Consolidation for his foray into politics.

The students' body said the mentor group's sanctity would be "sacrificed" if Bose remained at the helm while campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls as a Trinamool candidate from Jadavpur constituency.

Recently in a referendum conducted by the students' body, more than 75 percent of the participants had favoured Bose's stepping down from the post.

"I had been to Harvard and sought Amartya Sen's counsel. He advised me not to take an immediate decision and said I should think it over carefully before deciding.

"I will take everyone's opinions into consideration before deciding," he said here.

Bose also said President Pranab Mukherjee, who was finance minister 2009-2012, had also headed the Governing Council of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata, during that period.

"I will talk to the teachers and my friends who are there and ask if Mukherjee's political affiliation had resulted in good or bad... whether it had affected the governing body's functioning," he said.