Greatest Bengali of all time
Soon after the completion of "100 Greatest Britons" poll in 2002, the BBC organized a similar opinion poll to find the greatest Bengali personality in the history of India and Bangladesh. In 2004, the BBC's Bengali Service from Bangladesh conducted the opinion poll, titled "Greatest Bengali of All Time", which ran from February 11 to March 22. Bengalis around the world participated in the poll, including those from Bangladesh, India (states of West Bengal, Tripura, Orissa, and Assam), and overseas Bengali communities. No individual from the Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal was nominated. A  total of 140 nominations were produced from the poll. The BBC started to announce the top 20 names from 26 March declaring one name each day starting from 20th position. On the final day, 14 April, which was also the Pahela Baishakh/Poila Baisakh for Indian Bengalis (Bengali New Year's Day), the BBC announced Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, as the "Greatest Bengali of All Time", as voted by Bengalis worldwide. Methodology. Describing the process of voting, BBC's Bengali Service stated that to avoid any flaw or controversy, they followed the most modern method of  opinion polling. Participants were asked to nominate their five choices of greatest Bengali on the order of preference instead of one. The top nominee of each voter was given five points, second nominee four points, thus eventually the fifth nominee got one point. On the basis of total points, the final list of the greatest Bengali poll was generated. Observations. BBC informed that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman bagged almost double points than the second place holder Rabindranath Tagore, while Tagore himself secured double points than Kazi Nazrul Islam and Nazrul got double than A. K. Fazlul Huq. The other 17 personalities  however had narrow differences of points with each other. Along with highest six politicians, the list also contains several authors and social reformers. Also two religious preachers, one scientist and one economist got place in the final list. Begum Rokeya was the only woman and Amartya Sen only living personality to be voted in top 20.