Governor announces Mahua Mukherjee as V-C of RBU

KOLKATA: Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar announced onThursday that he has appointed Dr Mahua Mukherjee, Professor, Department of Dance, Rabindra Bharati University (RBU), as its vice-chancellor.

The news was communicated by Dhankhar through a tweet that read: "WB Guv Shri Jagdeep Dhankhar as Chancellor has appointed Dr. Mahua Mukherjee, Professor, Dept. of Dance, Rabindra Bharati University, as Vice Chancellor Rabindra Bharati University in terms of section 9(1)(b) of the Rabindra Bharati Act, 1981."

The Governor attached a letter in his tweet that read that the search committee in its meeting on June 9 had recommended three names. Other than Mukherjee, the other two names were Sandip Kumar Datta, Professor Department of Mathematics, Kalyani University and Debasish Bandyopadhyay, Professor of English Department of RBU.

The Education department sent him a note on June 24 to nominate one among the three. The name of Mukherjee was at number 1 and accordingly, the Governor did the needful. The directive should be implemented from July 4, stated the Governor.

Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury, has ended his tenure as V-C in 2020 and has been acting on extension.

"We have received no communication in this regard from the state Higher Education department," a senior official of RBU said.

Interestingly, the Governor's tweet came only some days after the the Bengal Assembly passed "The West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Bill" on June 13 seeking to replace Governor Dhankhar with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as the chancellor of all state-run universities.