Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Thursday here said he would write to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to install a life-size statue of the legendary musician and balladeer Bhupen Hazarika and also name a road after him in the national capital. Paying rich tributes to Hazarika on the occasion of his fourth death anniversary, Gogoi also formally inaugurated a memorial constructed at the site where he was cremated four years ago. The new memorial, set up on land donated by Gauhati University at Jalukbari here also has a 10-feet bronze statue of Hazarika. [related-post] “Bhupen Hazarika was a global citizen in the truest sense of the term. He will always remain immortal in people’s hearts because of his songs about universal brotherhood, peace, tolerance and nationalism,” Gogoi said. He also said that the government would request Columbia University in the USA to set up a centre named after Hazarika. The musician had done his PhD in Mass Communication from that university in 1952. Meanwhile, a function organized by Asam Sahitya Sabha in the Gauhati University campus to mark Hazarika’s death anniversary saw the coming of leaders from different parties on the same platform. While state cultural minister Bismita Gogoi inaugurated the function, senior BJP leader and Guwahati MP Bijoya Chakravarty and veteran AGP leader and former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta also shared the dias with the Congress minister.
