Tagore’s statue at CU; Shibu Soren (right)

Calcutta, Dec. 7: Is he Shibu Soren? No, he’s Rabindranath Tagore.

Confusion surrounding a statue of the most famous Bengali, in the Bengali department of Calcutta University (CU), has come to a head, with the work of bronze being removed.

The eight-ft statue was installed by ex-students of the department on May 9 to mark the Bard’s birthday. It had been drawing sniggers and frowns for its lack of resemblance with Rabindranath ever since. But insult was added to injury when the statue began to be referred to as Shibu Soren’s.

“Many people felt that the Tagore statue was not a lookalike of the poet. Some even complained that it looked like Shibu Soren’s,” admitted Samir Bandyopadhyay, the university registrar.

Off with the statue, cried CU officials. “How can we allow Tagore’s statue to be mistaken for the infamous Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader?” demanded one, justifying its exit from campus. Vice-chancellor Asis Kumar Banerjee issued an order last week for the immediate removal of the statue. It is now in the university’s museum.

“We will remodel it and put it back. It will take close to three months to rectify the faults of the statue,” said an official. The statue was built at a cost of Rs 8 lakh and was unveiled by state transport minister Subhas Chakraborty. Of the amount, Rs 1 lakh was sanctioned by chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, said alumni association members.

“We suddenly noticed on Monday that the statue was missing. How could they remove it without telling us?” demanded Ashoke Kundu, the general secretary of the alumni association. The statue was the work of a member of the association.

“Tagore had a long association with the university. We took the initiative to build the statue in 2004 and were finally able to install it on Ponchishe Baisakh,” added Kundu. Many visitors and delegates attending programmes in Darbhanga Building had complained to the vice-chancellor’s office about the “lack of resemblance” between Tagore and his statue.