Gangtok, Jan. 27: Two of Sikkim’s most famous sons have been chosen for the top civilian awards announced for Republic Day.

Sikkim’s first chief minister L.D. Kazi had been honoured with the Padma Vibhushan while actor Danny Denzongpa will receive the Padma Shri, the first time that the state has been chosen for the civilian awards.

“I am happy. It is good,” the 98-year-old Kazi said yesterday at the Raj Bhavan here, shortly after Sikkim Governor V. Rama Rao felicitated him with a shawl and bouquet for getting the second highest civilian award of the country.

Asked whether he felt the honour should have come to him earlier, the leader, who now stays in Kalimpong, said: “There is a time and opportunity for every thing. The time is ripe now.”

“Kazisahab”, as he is popularly known, was born in East Sikkim’s Pakyong in 1904. He began his political career in 1947 and launched the democratic movement in Sikkim when it was a tiny Himalayan kingdom ruled by Palden Thondup Namgyal, the last Chogyal of the hill state.

Known as the state’s father of democracy, Kazi was the chief architect of Sikkim’s merger with India in 1975.

His Sikkim Congress won the 1974 elections capturing 31 out of the 32 Assembly seats. Chief minister Pawan Chamling, whose government had recommended his name for the award, said the efforts to integrate the people of Sikkim with the rest of the country would get a boost with Kazi’s nomination for the Padma Vibhushan.