The All Lawyers' Forum Odisha collected signatures of Odias residing in Bangalore in support for Bharat Ratna to Utkalgaurab Madhusudan Das posthumously.
The members, including local Odia intellectual Nihar samantray, lawyer Jagannath Upadhaya, Aditya Kumar Padhi, Tapasraj Maharana, Umasankar Sahu and Laxmikanta Tripathy, led by lawyer Lingaraj Sahoo, collected signatures from Bangalore.
The signature campaign, which started in Kolkata in 2018, has covered Andaman, Chennai, Mumbai, Mathura, Amritsar, Haridwar and Kolkata.
"Many great leaders have been honoured with the Bharat Ratna since 1954. But no Odia legendary has been given the award. Now it is right time to amend the historic injustice done to Odisha," said Sahoo.