Bidyut Chakraborty told to vacate VBU’s official V-C residence by November 15

The former vice chancellor of Visva Bharati University (VBU), Bidyut Chakraborty who has drawn flak from all quarters till his resignation for his alleged controversial decisions, is now facing the heat as the incumbent acting vice-chancellor (V-C) has sent a letter to the former asking him to vacate the varsity V-C’s official residence ‘Purbita’.

The university’s acting vice-chancellor Sanjoy Kumar Mallik is learnt to have reportedly sent a letter to Chakraborty requesting him to vacate the official residence ‘Purbita’ within November 15. Bidyut was reminded that his term was over on November 8. However, none of the university’s acting authorities have confirmed this development.

It was learnt that Chakraborty was staying at Purbita even after his term ended; an act which has been condemned by other varsity officials and termed as “illegal”.

A teacher’s body of the varsity had complained to the acting V-C to take steps to evict Chakraborty. Most of them are of the opinion that this was unprecedented since all V-Cs prior to Bidyut, vacated the residence within 24 hours of completion

of their tenure.

Further, the authorities called the situation unfortunate but maintained that they need to abide by the university laws. It was pointed out that the very fact that Chakraborty had recently asked the police to interrogate him in Purbita after three weeks proves that he has allegedly no intention of vacating it.

Chakraborty had recently drawn flak from all quarters including the ruling party TMC and the Opposition parties, including BJP, after plaques installed within the varsity campus to notify UNESCO’s decision to tag Santiniketan as World Heritage Site excluded the name of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. The plaques bore the names of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chancellor of the University, and Bidyut Chakrabarty who was

then the V-C.