The West Bengal Cabinet on Monday, 6 June, passed a resolution to replace Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as chancellor of state-aided universities under different departments like Health, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Minority Affairs Department.
The resolution will have to be further passed in the state Assembly.
Currently, Governor Dhankhar is the Chancellor of all state universities, such as University of Calcutta, Rabindra Bharati University and Jadavpur University among others.
The decision would likely lead to a fresh confrontation between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and Governor Dhankhar, who have been at loggerheads since the latter assumed the governor's post in 2019.
Reacting to the development, West Bengal Leader of Opposition (LoP) Suvendu Adhikari said that education comes under the concurrent list and that he will meet the Governor next Monday on the issue and request to send it to Delhi (for the consideration of the President), news agency ANI reported.
Retorting to Adhikari's comment, West Bengal Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya stated that "Despite being a Law Committee member, he doesn't know law. If there's jurisdiction, laws can be made by State as well as Centre on subjects under concurrent list. Only in case of repugnancy between state and Centre can it go to President."
She added, "There's no law of Central Government over the law that has been amended, so where does the question of repugnance arise? Not understanding and considering oneself Excellency isn't correct. If LoP considers himself Excellency, he's insulting his spokesperson sitting in Raj Bhavan."
In May, West Bengal Education Minister Bratya Basu had said that the government will table a bill in the state Assembly to make CM Banerjee the chancellor of all state-run universities in place of the governor.
In December last year, Basu had said that the government was mulling over replacing Dhankhar as the chancellor, as he did not cooperate in administrative matters.
"The governor does not extend any cooperation and unnecessarily holds back files, thus my department is constrained to consider replacing the governor with the chief minister as the Chancellor of different universities," Education Minister Basu had said.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)