Bengal CM to replace governor as chancellor of all state universities

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will replace Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar as Chancellor of all the state-run health, agricultural, and animal & fishery sciences universities.

A formal decision was taken by the state cabinet on Monday afternoon to replace the Governor with the Chief Minister as the ‘visitor’ of private universities operating in the state.

At a previous meeting on May 26, it was decided to replace Dhankhar as the Chancellor of state universities. Monday’s decision was an extension of that decision.

“The monsoon session of the West Bengal assembly is scheduled to start from June 13. The amendment bills on this account will likely be tabled in the monsoon session for clearance. Once the bills are cleared, they will be sent to the Governor for his consent,” said a member of the Cabinet.

However, realising that the Governor will likely withhold his consent, the state government is prepared to bring in an ordinance.

The monsoon session of the assembly is expected to be stormy over two issues: The bills for replacing the Governor with the Chief Minister as university Chancellor or visitor, and the ongoing West Bengal School Service Commission recruitment scam.

The Trinamool Congress leadership has already instructed its legislators to maintain their cool while countering the jibes of the BJP legislators and avoid any kind of untoward scene as had happened in the previous session of the assembly where the ruling and opposition MLAs got into scuffles. A number of BJP legislators including the Leader of Opposition were suspended by the Speaker.