Amaravati: The Andhra Pradesh government on Sunday requested the Centre to confer Bharat Ratna–the highest civilian award upon the renowned singer SP Balasubrahmanyam, who passed away in Chennai on Friday due to post-COVID-19 complications.
“ This will be the highest recognition to his remarkable work which lasted for 5 decades and stays in our memory forever,” wrote Andhra Pradesh chief minister Jagan Mohan Reddy in his letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Stating that Andhra Pradesh was fortunate to be the birthplace of the great singer, Jagan wrote that the untimely demise of SPB had caused a lot of distress to fans across the country and also the international music fraternity. Jagan further noted that the “unending saga of his staggering achievements go beyond music.”
The chief minister said that the prolific singer had sung over 40,000 tracks in his mother tongue Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, and Hindi and had won innumerable awards including six national film awards, 25 Nandi awards of Andhra Pradesh, and numerous other awards. He was a recipient of the Padma Shri (2001) and Padma Bhushan (2011) from the Government of India.
“As a tribute to the legendary singer for his outstanding contribution in the field of music and art, I request you to confer the Bharat Ratna upon SPB,” Jagan concluded.
Meanwhile, fans also created an online petition demanding Bharat Ratna for the late singer on various platforms, including Change.org. The petition already has over 26,000 signatories.