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Bengal looks to make CM chancellor of its varsities
There has been no reaction from Raj Bhawan to the decision, although it is the governor who has to give his assent to the proposed bill. According to the governor’s official website, Jagdeep Dhankhar is the ex-officio chancellor of 17 universities in West Bengal.
The West Bengal cabinet on Thursday decided to table a bill in the state assembly to replace the governor with the chief minister as chancellor of all state-run universities, education minister Bratya Basu said, a move that is seen as a fallout of the long-running battle between chief minister Mamata Banerjee and governor Jagdeep Dhankhar.
“The cabinet unanimously decided that the chancellor of all state-run universities will be the chief minister in place of the governor,” said Basu after the cabinet meeting on Thursday. “This decision will be placed before the legislative assembly in the form of a bill during the next session.”
There has been no reaction from Raj Bhawan to the decision, although it is the governor who has to give his assent to the proposed bill. According to the governor’s official website, Dhankhar is the ex-officio chancellor of 17 universities in West Bengal.
“The government will take the ordinance route if the governor does not give his nod to the proposed bill,” said a senior minister, who did not wish to be named.
The decision was taken because governor Dhankhar in his capacity as chancellor had been raising questions on the selection of vice-chancellors, which is the prerogative of the state government, said another Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader, also requesting anonymity.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) reacted sharply to the Bengal cabinet’s decision.
“Mamata Banerjee wants to have all powers in her own hands. This is one such move in that direction. She wants to run an authoritarian regime where nobody can question her actions. This is a tactic to divert people’s attention from burning issues,” said Bengal BJP’s chief spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya.
TMC state general secretary Kunal Ghosh took on the governor. “A governor enjoys a constitutional post but this governor is an agent of the BJP,” Ghosh alleged.
Former principal of Kolkata’s Presidency College, now a university, Amal Mukhopadhyay said the government’s action will politicise the education system. “The state’s education system will be adversely affected by political interference,” he said.
The governor of the state, in most cases, is the ex-officio chancellor of the universities set up by the respective state. The governor’s role as the chancellor in appointing the vice chancellors of state-run universities has occasionally led to dispute with the state’s government.
Last month, the Tamil Nadu assembly passed two bills that sought to transfer the governor’s power in appointing V-Cs of state universities to the state government. A similar legislation was passed by the Gujarat assembly in 2015.
The TMC government’s acrimonious relationship with Raj Bhawan has been in the news for various reasons ever since Dhankhar was appointed governor in July 2019.
In February 2020, Dhankhar set up a faceoff with the state government when he issued a show-cause notice to Debkumar Mukhopadhyay, the vice-chancellor of Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University in north Bengal for not informing him about the university’s convocation.
In July 2020, after vice-chancellors of 20 state-run universities did not attend a virtual meeting convened by him, Dhankhar attacked Mamata Banerjee, accusing the government of caging the state’s education system in politics. Banerjee hit back, saying Dhankhar was “more dangerous than a mouthpiece of the BJP”.
The 17 Bengal universities that have the governor as chancellor, according to Dhankar’s official website, are the University of Calcutta, Jadavpur University, University of Kalyani, Rabindra Bharati University, Vidyasagar University, University of Burdwan, North Bengal University, Netaji Subhas Open University, West Bengal University of Technology, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, University of Animal and Fishery Sciences, West Bengal University of Health Sciences, Aliah University, Gour Banga University and West Bengal State University.
