A long road of three-kilometers with historic buildings of the campus has to be returned to Visva Bharati University, urges the Vice-Chancellor. He has written a strongly worded letter to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee pleading with her to do so.
Letter written to the Chief Minister
Visva Bharati University Vice-Chancellor Bidyut Chakraborty has written a new letter to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee requesting that the government give a thought on returning the road surrounded by historically significant buildings on campus back to the university.
In 2020, the university gave the state Public Works Department control of the 3-kilometer road that connected Post Office More with Sriniketan in order”to facilitate better connectivity”.
VC Bidyut Chakraborty criticized Mamata Banerjee in a sharply worded letter to her, urging to see the reality.
Requests made earlier by the University
In order to preserve the historic buildings lining the road, the university has been requesting that it be restored. The varsity has now considered the request in three letters. This September, on September 25 and 30, two letters were sent to the government.
The VC said, “It is unfortunate that you are uninterested in our request. The view of having the road restored to Visva Bharati, you are not interested as you are oblivious to the reality on the ground. I’m curious if you still base your opinions on what your followers say or if you still interpret information based only on what you hear”.
(Image source : ANI)
“No one is permanent”, said Chakraborty
Chakraborty went on to say that “no one is permanent in this world” in his letter to the Chief Minister. “After the VC term ends, I will also need to relocate. You too will have to resign as Chief Minister if you are not favored in the next elections in 2026. People ought to be handled with that comprehension,” he added.
“You might not be thinking properly about this. You are not comprehending our concerns, and you think that embezzling public funds is a normal practice,” he said. Chakraborty also informed the Chief Minister about the current jail status of two of her cabinet members and a few of her assistants. The letter stated that two of the senior ministers are in Tihar jail. And even some of the trusted members of TMC are in jail, even in Delhi’s Tihar jail.
(Image source : ANI)
The Vice-Chancellor mentioned each of the cases against the Trinamool Congress leaders. Some ministers, and even MP Mahua Moitra, who are being investigated for different reasons and have been singled out by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), were referred.
The university has recently been embroiled in controversy over plaques that has been installed on campus to define it as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, because of the name of the Nobel laureate and founder of the university, Rabindranath Tagore, was absent. Regarding this, the VC’s letter said, “UNESCO has declared Santiniketan as a World Heritage Site and we have to follow the ASI guidelines while preparing the plaque and we are doing so, and the result will be seen soon.
Bengal has been witnessing this since last week when three plaques with the names of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi as acharya and Chakrabarty as the Vice-Chancellor but did not mention Rabindranath Tagore, who was founder of Visva-Bharati in 1921.
