KOLKATA: Ira Basu, the 72-year-old sister of former Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s wife Mira, was admitted to a nursing home in Panihati on Thursday evening after she was shifted from the mental hospital, where she was admitted on September 10, to a rented accommodation earlier in the day.
Sources said she was taken to the nursing home after complaining of unease. Doctors will run some diagnostic tests to determine if she has any ailment.
Earlier in the day, Trinamool MP Abhishek Banerjee sent some representatives to the mental hospital to arrange for her return to the Khardah home. He also reportedly assured the septuagenarian, a retired school teacher, that her issue of monthly pension would be looked into as well.
Basu, a former school teacher of a Khardah girls’ school, has been living on the pavement for several years. She was allegedly driven out of her own house at Salt Lake. Basu retired from the government school in 2009 and is entitled to a monthly pension, which she hasn’t yet claimed.
The matter came to light after a bunch of her students felicitated Basu on a pavement under the Dunlop flyover on Teacher’s Day. According to locals, Basu never begged or accepted money but lived on pavements across the Baranagar and Dunlop area. She would make it a point to buy food from local eateries and never accepted alms.
“I would never beg. I would stay at a rented place. If I can’t, I would return to the pavement. Mira Bhattacharya, my sister, already made a statement about me and I have a great respect for her and her husband. Abhishek Banerjee sent some people to look after me and assured to look into my pension issues,” Basu said.
