West Bengal passes bill to replace Governor with CM as chancellor of state universities, here’s what it means

The West Bengal assembly on Monday passed the bill to make the chief minister the chancellor of state universities, replacing the governor. The bill will make CM Mamata Banerjee chancellor of all universities under the state department instead of Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar. The state assembly will pass similar bills for universities under health, agricultural, animal husbandry and fishery departments in the coming days of the monsoon session.

These bills will now be sent to the governor for his approval. If Dhankhar refuses to clear the bills, the state government plans to enforce the same through an ordinance, it was earlier announced by WB education minister Bratya Basu.

What this means?

The Governor is the chancellor of all state universities in their x-officio role. As per the official website of the West Bengal governor, “In an ex-officio capacity, the Governor of West Bengal is Chancellor of the universities of West Bengal (at present 17) as per the Acts of the Universities. The Universities are - University of Calcutta, Jadavpur University, University of Kalyani, Rabindra Bharati University, Vidyasagar University, University of Burdwan, North Bengal University, Netaji Subhas Open University, West Bengal University of Technology, Bengal Engineering and Science University, Uttar Banga Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, University of Animal and Fishery Sciences, West Bengal University of Health Sciences, Aliah University, Gour Banga University and West Bengal State University.”

“For Visva Bharati, the Governor is the Pradhana (Rector),” it adds.

The chancellor is the hand of the university, its President and presides over all the convocations of state universities. The scope of powers include making nominations to any authority or body of the University. The Chancellor shall, to the extent necessary, nominate persons to represent interests not otherwise adequately represented. Every proposal conferring any honorary degree is subject to confirmation by the chancellor.

Reactions to the move by the West Bengal government

The opposition claims that CM Mamata Banerjee is satisfying her narrow political interests with the move. Apart from the opposition, a larger section of the state’s academics, educationists and intellectuals are also skeptic of the decision and have instead proposed that chancellors of universities be appointed from among reputed educationists.

Leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari has said that they will continue to oppose the move. “I will request the governor to send the bill to the Union government since education is in the concurrent list. Just as the state government could not get the name of West Bengal changed to Bengal and also could not introduce legislative council, similarly this dream of the chief minister will never be fulfilled” Adhikari said.

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(With inputs from agencies)