West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose on Saturday midnight dispatched two “confidential letters”, one to Nabanna – the state secretariat – and other to the “Delhi”, reports The Indian Express.
His letter came after state Education Minister Bratya Basu accused him of trying to “destroy” the higher education system in the state and running a “puppet regime” in universities.
On the content of the letters, the official told news agency PTI that “it would be disclosed later”.
Governor Bose signed the letters a couple of hours after holding an elaborate meeting with Chief Secretary H K Dwivedi at Raj Bhavan.
The heated exchange between the two began after Governor Bose, in his capacity as chancellor of state universities, appointed interim vice-chancellor to nearly a dozen varsities, with Basu alleging that the decisions were taken without taking the state government into confidence and deemed it as illegal.
The minister also accused the Governor of denigrating the office of vice-chancellor by calling them “corrupt and immoral”, following which Bose on Saturday said that he would take action against Basu “at the stroke of midnight”.
“I am glad, I have acted. Wait for the stroke of midnight today. You will see what is the action,” said the Governor while speaking to the press on the sidelines of an event in Kolkata.
Following this, Bratya Basu posted on X, formerly Twitter, saying, “See till midnight, see the action” BEWARE! BEWARE! BEWARE! New Vampire in the town! Citizens, please watch yourselves. Eagerly waiting for the “Rakkhas Prahar”, according to Indian Mythology!”
Meanwhile, the West Bengal Educationists’ Forum, in a statement, described Bose’s comment on midnight action as “threats”.
“It is unfortunate to witness the chancellor issuing threats of staging a midnight drama of revenge against the educationists and the officials and functionaries of the state higher education department,” the statement said.
Earlier, on Thursday, Bose had released a video message alleging that some of the names for the post of V-Cs recommended by the state government were “corrupt” and faced harassment charges.
“Now, you would want to know why I could not appoint the vice-chancellors recommended by the state government. But it is a fact that some of them were corrupt, indulged in political games…while some had harassment charges against them. Now, tell me my brothers and sisters, should an interim vice-chancellor be corrupt? Will they harass female students?” Bose said in the video in Bengali, asking people to support him.
The message came after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee slammed the Governor “taking unilateral decisions” related to state universities and threatened to block funds for universities and sit on a dharna in front of Raj Bhavan.
Last Sunday, the Governor had appointed interim vice-chancellors of seven universities, including Presidency University, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad University of Technology and Burdwan University.
A day later, Bose also initiated the process of appointing vice-chancellors in seven other state universities.
On Wednesday midnight, he also announced the name of Professor Kajal De as the officiating vice-chancellor of the newly established Kanyashree University.