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Visva-Bharati vice chancellor hits back at Mamata Banerjee on plaque issue
Visva-Bharati vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty wrote a four-page letter to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, targeting the TMC government in West Bengal over corruption
Bidyut Chakrabarty, the vice-chancellor (V-C) of Visva-Bharati, West Bengal’s only central university on Sunday hit back at chief minister Mamata Banerjee who has demanded immediate removal of the controversial plaques recently installed on campus to mark the inclusion of Santiniketan in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Bengal has been witnessing a row since last week because the three plaques bear the names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as acharya (chancellor) and vice-chancellor Chakrabarty but don’t mention Rabindranath Tagore who founded Visva-Bharati in 1921.
Chakrabarty wrote a four-page letter to Banerjee seeking return of a road on the campus that the state public works department acquired in 2021.
“Unfortunately, you appear to be indifferent to our request for returning the road to Visva Bharati presumably because you do not appear to see the ground reality by your eyes. I wonder whether you continue to form your opinion on the basis of what your sycophants convey or you still see things through your ears. You are perturbed that in the plaque, Rabindranath does not figure,” the letter said.
Without naming the TMC leaders, ministers and MP Mahua Moitra who are facing probes for various reasons and have become targets of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the V-C referred to each of the cases against them.
Chakrabarty wrote: “If you consider that stealing public money is a welcome practice, then certainly, you may not have the right kind of mindset to understand our concern. Two of your senior ministers are in gaol; some of your trusted aides (even from Birbhum) in jail, including Tihar jail in Delhi.”
“Your government appointed Vice Chancellor is also incarcerated with the alleged charge of misappropriating money in exchange of public jobs. Your most vocal member of parliament is being charged with activities which have already drawn the parliamentary ethics committee to examine the issue. Many of your prominent colleagues are alleged to have been involved in malpractices (the scam involving jobs in the education sector, ration scam, cow smuggling, land-grabbing etc) which are contrary to your standard of appropriate behaviour expected of those working for people,” the letter added.
“An important point is about a universal truth - nobody is permanent in his/her worldly existence. I shall cease to be a Vice Chancellor once my term comes to end; you will no longer remain a Chief Minister if the voters express their disillusionment in 2026. So, we need to behave accordingly,” the V-C wrote.
Marking a sharp departure from the stand BJP leaders have taken on the issue so far, Suvendu Adhikari, leader of the opposition in the state assembly, did not support the V-C.
“Rabindranath lives in the heart of every Bengali. The V-C should stop being stubborn. If he has made a mistake, he should rectify it,” Adhikari told the media.
TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh said Chakrabarty sounded like a “true BJP cadre, which he is, and not a V-C.”
“For a man who can write a letter of this nature to a chief minister, the only appropriate place is a hospital for mental patients. He should not be in any educational institution,” said Ghosh.
