WB Govt to Table Bill to Make CM Mamata Chancellor of All State-Run Universities

Currently, Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar is the Chancellor of all state-run universities in West Bengal.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. 

(Photo: Erum Gour/ The Quint)

The West Bengal government will table a bill in the state's Assembly to make Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee the Chancellor of all state-run universities in place of Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, the state's education minister Bratya Basu said on Thursday, 26 May.

Basu also added that the cabinet had given its approval regarding the proposed bill.

''Today, the state cabinet gave its consent to the proposal to make the chief minister the chancellor of all state-run universities in place of the governor. This proposal will soon be introduced as a bill in the assembly,'' the education minister said, as per PTI.

The decision would likely lead to a fresh confrontation between the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo and Governor Dhankhar, who has been at loggerheads with CM Banerjee since assuming the governor's post in 2019.

Currently, Governor Dhankhar is the Chancellor of all state universities, such as University of Calcutta, Rabindra Bharati University and Jadavpur University among others.

In December last year, WB's Education Department had said that it was mulling over replacing Governor Dhankhar as the Chancellor of state-run universities.

"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 was quoted as saying by IANS.

(With inputs from PTI and IANS.)