Kolkata: West Bengal governor Jagdeep Dhankhar has called a meeting with all the vice-chancellors (V-Cs) and state education department secretary on January 13 after he faced unprecedented protests by the Jadavpur University (JU) students and staff for the second consecutive day, this time barring him from entering the campus to attend the convocation.
After remaining stranded for nearly one-and-a-half hours in his car, the governor left the campus fuming as the convocation was held without him.
He accused the Mamata Banerjee government of its role behind the agitation against him and “controlling” academic institutes. On Tuesday, Mr Dhankhar, also the chancellor of JU, went to the varsity to attend the convocation after invitation. When he was about to enter the campus, angry students and staff backed by the unions affiliated to the TMC and Left blocked his convoy.
Shouting slogans “Go Back Dhankhar” and “No Citizenship Amend-ment Act, No National Register of Citizens” they showed him black flags like they had done on Monday when he had visited JU for a meeting.
He later said at the Raj Bhavan, “I have called a meeting of all the V-Cs of the universities for a thorough interaction at Raj Bhawan at 11 am on January 13. The paralysis generated by the state to control the universities can be seen from the fact I, as chancellor, have no input from the higher education department.”
“A policy paralysis of a critical nature can be seen from the fact that the state higher education department’s principal secretary has not been able to inform either about the programme at JU or at the Calcutta University. The trend leaves no manner of doubt that the cancellations are remote controlled,” Mr Dhankhar complained.
