File Photo: Dr Anuradha Lohia, Presidency University's Vice Chancellor
A section of students at Presidency University have rejected the vice chancellor's plan to set up a committee to resolve their grievances. Protests will continue till the vice chancellor, Dr Anuradha Lohia, resigns, they say. And one of the issues they will highlight is the vice chancellor's perceived closeness to chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Dr Lohia invited Ms Banerjee to campus on Friday which sparked the student protests. She attended Ms Banerjee's administrative meeting in Burdwan last month and even went to London with her.
The vice chancellor, however, denied any political leaning. "I do not share any political party's ideology. Yes, I went with the CM to London... I went to the administrative meeting. But I was not the only VC there. There were four others. Why is no one else being targeted?" Dr Lohia said.
"If people feel I am close to CM, I have just one question: what have I done by being close to CM which has politicized anything here? I have only worked for the university? If CM has been benevolent enough to give funds... should we not celebrate it? I don't have a leaning," she added.
But students are not convinced. Not just students, criticism has come from outside as well.
"If the CM wants to give funds to Presidency, it is the state's duty and not benevolence. The way the VC bowed before her while receiving the approval of funds was embarrassing," said Trisha Chanda, general secretary, Presidency University students association.
The students say it was Mamata Banerjee's party cadre who beat up colleagues on campus on April 10, 2013. The Trinamool has not punished anyone for that incident yet. How can the VC appear close to the chief minister, ask students.
Dr Lohia, however, said that a letter about the students' grievance about the 2013 incident had been sent to the chief minister's office last week.
For now, loud slogans may have made way for mute protests against Dr Lohia. But with students rejecting a committee she set up on Monday for dialogue, a return to normalcy at Presidency may be a while yet.