‘Last-minute requests not acceptable’: Exams clashing with TMCP rally won’t be rescheduled, says Calcutta University interim V-C Santa Datta De
‘TMC supremo’ should have reprimanded students for asking that the exam dates be changed, Calcutta University interim V-C Santa Datta De said on Saturday.
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University schedules are prepared following the academic calendar, interim vice-chancellor of the Calcutta University, Santa Datta De said. (File photo)The interim vice-chancellor of the Calcutta University, Santa Datta De, said on Saturday that the BCom Semester 4 and BA LLB Semester 4 exams will be held on August 28 as per schedule, despite demands that they be rescheduled as they fall on the same day as the foundation day of the Trinamool Chhatra Parishad (TMCP), the Trinamool Congress’s student wing.
De had said on Friday that she received an official communication from the West Bengal government urging that the exams be rescheduled. The exams are to be held between 2 pm to 5 pm, around the same time the TMCP foundation rally takes place in Kolkata. “How can such a request come? I do not understand…This is very unprecedented,” De told The Indian Express on Saturday.
“I feel that the government should always be neutral, as it is everyone’s (government). If the government and the party mix, it becomes a big problem for others to work and perform their duties,” De said.
Slamming the TMCP and criticising TMC chief and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, De said, “I would say a ruling party’s students’ wing is raising unruly students, gang rapists, goons…for them, universities are registering FIRs. The party supremo could have said the foundation day this year is cancelled because you are tarnishing my image…She would have gained far more popularity…more votes. Instead of doing that, they are putting pressure on students and us.”
De said that accepting one political party’s demand would mean exceptions have to be made for other parties. “If I make an exception, it will apply to all political parties…I have to consider all of them. Then, when will we work? How will the university make a schedule or function?”
University schedules are prepared following the academic calendar, De said. “The exam dates were fixed two or three months ago. Such last-minute requests are not acceptable,” she added.
“The main responsibility of students is to study and write exams. As guardians, when our children do something wrong, we reprimand them; the same applies here. The supremo should have reprimanded them and asked them to celebrate Foundation Day on another date,” she said.
According to De, an emergency syndicate meeting will be held on Monday to make a final decision on the matter. “One has to realise that there are hundreds of colleges under Calcutta University, so it is not easy to change dates. It is a mammoth task,” she said.
Meanwhile, Trinankur Bhattacharya, state TMCP president, said students could face transportation issues as people from across the state arrive. “The university should have thought on humanitarian grounds, but the V-C has a politically vindictive stand. That is reflected in her statement,” he said
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