The West Bengal cabinet has passed a Bill seeking the appointment of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as the Chancellor of the 17 state universities, replacing Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar.
As many as 182 legislators voted in favour of the bill while 40 opposition members opposed it in the house of 294.
Even though it is yet to get Governor's assent, West Bengal is one of the first states to propose such legislation. Even Tamil Nadu and Gujarat took this step of passing legislation and empowering the state governments to appoint Vice-Chancellors to the various state universities. While Gujarat passed the legislation in 2015, Tamil Nadu did so in April this year.
It may be noted that Opposition leader Suvendu Adhikari plus six BJP MLA could not participate in the voting as they were barred from attending Assembly proceedings on disciplinary grounds. Following defection to the ruling Trinamool Congress, BJP's strength in the Assembly has been reduced to 70 from 77.
''Even though the TMC has managed to pass the bill because of its strength in the Assembly, the governor will surely send it to the Centre since education is a subject on the concurrent list,'' said Adhikari.
It was only last month that the Governor of West Bengal had termed the move of the state government to replace him as a ploy. It was to draw attention away from a school recruitment scam being probed by the CBI, he said.
''The proposal and approval of the cabinet is nothing but a ploy to divert attention from the pressing problems of the state. I am not concerned about what the government does unless the papers reach me. When the papers will be placed before me, I will take a call according to constitutional provisions,'' Dhankhar had said.
Sources in the state government shared that if the governor doesn't green signal, the ordinance will be promulgated to amend the changes replacing the governor.
The face-off between the state government and the constitutional head came to light when the Governor alleged that the West Bengal government was recruiting Vice-Chancellors without his approval.
