Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar today visited Calcutta University’s College Street campus but there was no official to receive him at the premises and the room of the Vice Chancellor (V-C) Sonali Chakraborty Bandopadhyay’s office was found locked. Repeated phone calls, messages and emails to the university officials went unanswered. Mr Dhankhar then visited the university’s library but there too both the librarian and the deputy librarian were absent. A baffled and seemingly insulted Dhankhar, who is also the Chancellor of the university, asked the state government not to politicise educational institutions.

“Where are we heading? There is already a policy paralysis in the core education sector. All my communications to improve goes to one place that is a black hole. Our universities have to be temples of justice. The VC has to be allowed to act. Both the government and the Chancellor have to play their own roles. I’ll continue to be persuasive and would urge everyone to think and reflect. An effort has to be made to get into correctional mode and we need to work together for improving the educational environment. It has to be remembered that the best way to destroy a country is to destroy its education system. Once we destroy the education system then it can’t be revived for several generations,” Mr Dhankhar told reporters at CU.

According to the Governor, a request was made on 28 November by CU for Mr Dhankhar to preside over the Senate meeting that was scheduled today. Mr Dhankhar accorded acceptance to the request the very next day and a notice was sent to the 102 members of the Senate. “A communication was received from the university yesterday stating that due to unavoidable reasons the meeting would not be taking place. Given the situation that the I has earmarked time for this meeting, I asked my office to direct the VC that I would be making a visit to the university to interact with the members of the faculty, the staff, employees and students and visit the library. The Office of the Vice Chancellor was also contacted and intimated accordingly,” Mr Dhankhar said.

“But we who have to do our duty cannot be deterred by these things. I said I’m coming and I came. If I’m wrong, hang me. When I came here there was nobody to receive me. I don’t love to be received. I can do on my own and I’m not a protocol-oriented person. But I have to protect the office of the Governor. Still I chose to come here. Surprisingly, the room of the VC is locked. I asked for the keys but nobody had any answer. Surely, the VC can’t take the keys with her?” he said.

“As Chancellor it is my duty to make sure that educational environment improves.” According to a statement issued by Raj Bhawan, “The VC was not available on the campus as also other senior functionaries in spite of the intimation….Students greeted Mr Dhankhar with placards (raising demands for) immediately providing for compassionate appointment, removing all anomalies of promotion, saving the autonomy, saving the University, etc. Governor took note of these inputs”.

The statement further read: “Governor shared his ideas that there is need to work in togetherness for development of the university and improvement of environment in education sector. He lamented that such kind of incidents are indicative of governmental remote control over the universities and that is not good for the health of the universities. He indicated to the journalists that he would continue to strive to secure a healthy educational environment and would find out from the VC as to what her version is regarding the state of affairs at the campus on this day.” A senior official of CU said that they had sent a letter to the governor yesterday informing him about the meeting being cancelled.

“As far as his visit to the Central Library is concerned we were not informed about it,” the official added. The governor, who has been at loggerheads with the Mamata Banerjee government over several issues, is being blamed by the ruling Trinamul Congress for delaying clearance of pending bills leading to an abrupt two-day adjournment of the state assembly, opening a new front for hostilities. Amidst this, Mr Dhankhar said that he will be visiting the House tomorrow morning. The House is adjourned till tomorrow and the Winter Session will resume on 6 December at 11 am, it was announced yesterday. Earlier, no senior state official attended the meetings convened by the governor during his visit to North and South 24-Parganas districts.