Kolkata: The bonhomie between West Bengal Governor C.V. Ananda Bose and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for the past few months seems to be dissipating, with the two starting to take jibes at each other on various issues.
Barely four months back, Mamata was seen on 26 January at a ceremony at Raj Bhavan where the CM gifted a book of Bengali alphabets to Bose.
But the ties turned sour in February after the Governor removed senior bureaucrat Nandini Chakravorty, who was appointed by the Mamata government as the principal secretary to the governor.
It further nosedived on 4 April, when Bose issued a circular to all state-run universities asking them to send a weekly report. The governor also asked the vice-chancellors (V-Cs) to seek his nod for any decision which has financial implications.
An official from the education department told ThePrint that the Raj Bhavan passed out its instructions unilaterally. Citing a 2019 Bengal government rule, the official added that the Chancellor’s communications to the V-Cs has to be addressed through the education department.
While addressing a convocation ceremony on 10 May, the Governor cited lines from Hamlet to send out a message. “When there is a crisis, be it constitutional crisis, judicial crisis or political one, a Governor should not be like Hamlet in Shakespeare — ‘to be or not be’,” Bose said.
Mamata responded sharply to the Governor’s statement the same day, the first time she spoke out against Bose who is set to complete six months in office.
“When the Governor was given the post of Chancellor in State-run universities, there were only 10 or 12 institutes. But the department of Higher Education runs the universities. I don’t interfere with the department. … We must keep in mind that we all have limitations. Currently, we have 42 universities. The earlier rule of the Governor as Chancellor cannot continue. He cannot control them and order them to give weekly reports. V-Cs will teach, work, handle students or give the Governor a weekly report? If they need to give a report, they will have to give it to the State Government,” Mamata said.
“We stand for the independence of universities. The governor is being ill-advised. We passed a Bill in the Assembly to remove the governor as the Chancellor of state-run Universities, but he hasn’t signed it. He has not returned the Bill. I urge him to either sign it or send it back. We will pass the Bill again,” stated Mamata.
On 7 June last year, the Trinamool government passed the West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022 in the assembly that sought to replace the Governor with the chief minister as the Chancellor of the state-run universities citing the Punchhi Commission report which said the Governor should not be burdened with positions and powers not envisaged under the Constitution which may expose the office to public criticism.
While Bose’s predecessor Jagdeep Dhankhar hadn’t signed the Bill, Bose seems to be following the same route in Bengal. Dhankhar shared frosty ties with Mamata before he moved to New Delhi in August last year after he was made the vice-president.
Education Minister Bratya Basu, too, came out against Bose, saying that the manner in which the governor was bypassing the education department gives the impression that he is behaving like Macbeth.
“The way he is surrounded by BJP’s Marcus and Brutus, he would end up like Julius Caesar,” he added.
BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh, meanwhile, told ThePrint that Bose was discharging his duties within the Constitutional framework.
“The Governor has been active and sending messages to the government from time to time. The education department is submerged in corruption. Many officials, including the former education minister (Partha Chatterjee), are in jail. The TMC doesn’t have the moral right to speak when it comes to the education department’s progress,” Ghosh added.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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