West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose, on Thursday, said that he would wipe out corruption and violence from the universities of West Bengal. “I am the chancellor of the university, and I want our universities to be the best in India,” Bose said. “I am pledging in the name of Rabindranath Tagore and in the name of Swami Vivekananda that I will fight this till the last moment. Ten crores of brothers and sisters are with me. They want campuses and the education system to be free of corruption,” the West Bengal Governor said in a video message shared by the Raj Bhavan in West Bengal.
The statement from the Governor comes at a time when the Raj Bhavan and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) led state government are embroiled in a war of words over the appointment of interim Vice Chancellors to some universities by the Governor. CV Ananda Bose, who is the ex-officio Chancellor of the all-state-aided university, has been appointing people of his choice as Vice Chancellor for the past few months. Speaking about his recent move to appoint interim VCs, Bose said, “The Bengal education ministry has appointed VCs. The Supreme Court ordered, ‘You are wrong, government, you are wrong’. The Supreme Court said, ‘Your action, government, is illegal, illegal, illegal, in capital letters’. All the vice-chancellors had to go; they had to resign.”
“Now, in this situation, I had to appoint interim VCs. The Education Ministry said this was wrong, but the Calcutta High Court said I was right,” he said. Governor Bose further explained the main reason behind his inability to appoint the candidate nominated by the West Bengal government and said, “You know why I could not appoint those nominated by the state government as interim vice-chancellors. The truth is, some were corrupt; some stand accused of harassing a female student, some were playing politics.”“Now tell me, brothers and sisters, will the interim VC be one who is corrupt? One who will harass a female student? Tell me, brothers and sisters. Tell me,” he said. Governor Bose further alleged that five Vice chancellors appointed by him were harassed by the TMC-led state government, “They have told me goons were threatening them. The education ministry was intimidating them. Senior IAS officers were pressuring them.