Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Rajya Sabha MP and former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Sushil Kumar Modi on Friday criticized the move of the West Bengal government in introducing a Bill to make Chief Minister Mamata Banarjee as Chancellor of state-run universities.
Speaking to ANI, Sushil Kumar Modi said, "This tradition was established during the time of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. On Radhakrishnan Committee's recommendation, it became a tradition that the Governor of state will be the chancellor of state Universities. If you have political opposition, it does not mean you can violate democratic processes."
BJP MP further argued that as far as the appointment of the Vice-Chancellor is concerned, only the Governor alone does not have the right to appointment of Vice-Chancellors, a search committee of 3-4 Members was formed for the appointment and then the Governor and the Chief Minister together decide the names.
"Mamata Banerjee does whatever comes to her mind and acts arbitrarily. But she will not be able to do anything. She cannot make such a provision because the final consent has to be given by the Governor. Even if the cabinet passes it, the assembly passes it, even then the consent has to be given by Governor," Modi added.
Referring to Tamil Nadu, the former Bihar Deputy CM said, "Despite Opposition by Tamil Nadu CM, was Governor removed from Chancellor post there? There is a good tradition going on for years that the Chancellor is the head of the universities, and that tradition should be maintained."
The West Bengal Cabinet on Thursday gave its nod to introduce a bill to replace the Governor with the Chief Minister as chancellor of all state-run universities, informed education minister Bratya Basu.
The move is seen as a fallout of the long-running battle between chief minister Mamata Banerjee and governor Jagdeep Dhankhar.
Currently, the Governor is the Chancellor of all state universities. According to the Governor's official website, Dhankar is the ex-officio chancellor of 17 universities in Bengal. The move has drawn sharp criticism from the BJP.
Slamming Mamata Banerjee over the decision, BJP leader Amit Malviya on Thursday termed the move an "attack on federalism" and called it "another attempt to evade accountability and transparency".
( With inputs from ANI )
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