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Mamata Banerjee cabinet passes 2 bills to curtail guv’s rule, sets up a face-off
Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar last week described the attempt by the TMC government to replace him as chancellor as a ploy to divert attention from irregularities in recruitment
KOLKATA: The West Bengal cabinet on Monday cleared two draft legislations to remove the governor as chancellor of the 17 state-run universities and visitor of the nine private universities and replace him with the chief minister and education minister, respectively, people familiar with the matter said.
The two bills, proposed to be introduced in the assembly during the monsoon session beginning June 10, are seen as an effort by the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government to curtail the powers of governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and are predicted to lead to a showdown between the ruling TMC and opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the assembly.
West Bengal is the first state to attempt to strip the governor of the chancellor’s role. To be sure, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat have passed legislation stipulating that the governor will not have any role to play in the appointment of vice-chancellors of state-funded universities. Tamil Nadu passed the legislation in April while Gujarat passed the bill way back in 2015.
Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar last week described the attempt by the TMC government to replace him as chancellor as a ploy to divert attention from irregularities in recruitment by the School Service Commission (SSC) that is being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the Calcutta high court’s orders.
“25 vice-chancellors were appointed against law, against the directive of the chancellor who is the governor, and promoting inferior talent dictated by patronage, favouritism and nepotism,” Dhankhar added.
But the government will need Dhankhar to sign off on the bills that seek to curtail his powers once the assembly passes them. He will also have the option to return the bill for reconsideration, keep them pending or send them to the central government for its recommendation, people aware of the matter said.
Trinamool Congress ministers insisted that if the governor declines assent, the government will bring in an ordinance. But they didn’t explain what difference this will make since the executive order also requires Raj Bhavan to give its assent before it can be notified.
For now, governor Dhankhar has declined to speak on how he plans to deal with the bill.
“Who becomes chancellor and whether the role of the governor can be curtailed are things that I will examine when the paper comes to me. This is a ploy, tactics to generate media optics, to divert attention from what is happening in the recruitment scam. It is the mother of all scams,” he said.
The education sector is only one of the many areas in West Bengal in which the governor and the elected government have adopted a confrontational approach.
The BJP has decided to oppose the bills.
Leader of the opposition in the Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, has already said his party will not let the government pass any bill just because it has 217 seats in the 294-strong House.
“Adhikari will hold a meeting with us to discuss our strategy,” Manoj Tigga, the opposition chief whip in the assembly, said.
BJP leaders said they intend to keep the focus on the alleged irregularities in SSC recruitments in which junior education minister Paresh Adhikari’s daughter has already lost her job as a school teacher and former education minister Partha Chatterjee has been questioned by CBI. It is alleged that more than 300 teachers were recruited though none of them passed the qualifying tests.
