Kolkata: The vice-chancellor of Jadavpur University Suranjan Das expressed his desire to step down on Friday, amidst student agitation over the admission row that has resulted in a stalemate at the varsity.
Das met Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi, who happens to be the chancellor of the varsity, in the late afternoon and narrated the entire sequence of events that have unfolded in the varsity till now.
A source in the Governor house said that the V-C had been requested by the chancellor not to take any such decision with immediacy. "The Governor has also sought a detailed report from Das in this regard," the source added.
It may be mentioned that Das, who had fallen sick after being gheraoed by students of the Arts department for more than 37 hours, had left the university late on Thursday night.
In the morning he, along with pro vice-chancellor Pradip Ghosh, paid a visit to the Naktala residence of state Education minister Partha Chatterjee. A source in the Higher Education department said that the V-C has told the minister that he is finding it difficult to run the administration of the varsity, because of the undemocratic manner in which a section of the students have been continuing their agitation.
"I am unable to work under this tremendous pressure," Das had reportedly told the minister.
The V-C had slammed the students' movement as undemocratic on Thursday and had questioned "Can you name a single university in the country where students decide what the process of admission will be?"
Meanwhile, the agitating students of the arts department threatened to launch an indefinite hunger strike, if the JU authorities do not deviate from their decision of scrapping the admission test for this year and announcing that admission will be strictly on the basis of merit.
They met registrar Chiranjib Bhattacharjee and the latter urged them to wait till Monday before taking any further step.