Kolkata (West Bengal): Soon after declaring a half-day on Monday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday announced that songs of Bharat Ratna awardee Lata Mangeshkar will be played at every public spot, government installation and traffic signals for the next 15 days.
The chief minister said she is mesmerized by the late Lata Mangeshkar's voice like her other fans and paid a heartfelt tribute Bharat Ratna awardee.
Taking to Twitter, Banerjee wrote, "I pay my heart-felt tribute to the departed icon of India, Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar. While offering my sincerest condolences to her family and the billions of admirers that she leaves behind all over the world, I express my deepest sadness at the demise of the genius that the Nightingale of India truly was."
"Like all her fans and followers across the planet, I was also mesmerized by her voice and renderings and felt grateful that she held Bengal and the artists of the East so dear to her heart and so integral to her magnificent world of music," she tweeted further.
Mangeshkar was an Indian playback singer and occasional music composer popularly known as the "Nightingale of India" for her melodious voice.
Born on September 28, 1929, she began her career in the year 1942 at the age of 13. In a career spanning over seven decades, the melody queen recorded songs for over a thousand Hindi films. She had sung songs in over 36 regional Indian languages and foreign languages. (ANI)
