CM sending criminals after me because he lost control over universities: Governor

Malappuram: Governor Arif Mohammed Khan has dropped board hints that he would be playing an active role in the affairs of state universities post the Supreme Court judgment quashing the reappointment of the Kannur University Vice-Chancellor.

Speaking to reporters at the University of Calicut, where he camped from Saturday to Monday evening, Governor Khan said the Supreme Court judgment has made it clear that university matters come under the purview of the Chancellor. "Don't interfere in university matters. I am not interfering in your affairs," he said, in a message to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

The Governor, who is the ex-officio Chancellor of all state universities, was referring to the November 30 judgment of the Supreme Court quashing the reappointment of Prof Gopinath Ravindran as the Vice Chancellor of Kannur University on the grounds of "unwarranted political interference from the state government".

Khan alleged Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan hired the protesters and paid for the protest at the University of Kerala.

The Chief Minister and the government were abusing and milking everything in the universities, he alleged. "Now, the control of the universities has gone out of their hands after the judgment of the Supreme Court. That is why they are sending the criminals to frighten me," he said.

He was speaking to reporters after inaugurating a talk on 'Narayana Guru, the Prophet of Renaissance' organised by the Chair for Sanathana Dharma Studies and Research at the University of Calicut on Monday.

Vice Chancellor Prof M K Jayaraj, who was supposed to preside over the inaugural session of the talk, stayed away from the event.

Swami Chidananda Puri, who was the Visiting Professor of the Chair from its inception in 2005 till 2020, stood in for the Vice Chancellor as the president of the session. He said it was unprecedented for the Vice Chancellor to skip an event attended by the Chancellor. "If the Vice Chancellor could not attend, he should have sent the Pro Vice-Chancellor as his representative. That is the practice," said Chidananda Puri.

Speaking outside the event, Governor Khan told reporters that he could not explain the absence of the Vice Chancellor from the function.

When asked if he would serve a show-cause notice to the Vice Chancellor for skipping the event, Khan said there were several other reasons for serving him a notice but not attending a function could not be a basis for serving a show-cause notice

"Do you know there is a judgment of the Kerala High Court banning protests on campuses? Here banners were displayed for more than 24 hours. Six CPM workers were appointed as carpenters in one sanctioned post. There are many other grounds for serving show cause notice," he said.

The Students' Federation of India (SFI), the students' wing of the ruling CPM, has been protesting and putting up provocative banners on the campus during Chancellor Khan's stay there. It had accused Khan of being an agent of the Sangh Parivar to implement the agenda of the rightwing organisation. It said Khan has been appointing Sangh Parivar members as members of university senates, the supreme governing body of universities.

The police removed the banners only after the Governor gave a standing instruction to the District Police Chief S Sasidharan to remove them Sunday afternoon.

The student protesters put up more banners after the police removed them. In the afternoon, the DYFI also put up banners right outside the campus.

"If the Chief Minister were staying on the campus, would they allow the banners?" Governor Khan said.

He said the Vice Chancellor told him that most of the protesters were not even students.

He said he walked a kilometre on Mittayi Theruvu (Sweetmeat Street) in Kozhikode because "they said the protests were people's protests". "See the footage. How people were affectionate, loving. How they were showering their love on me," he said. (Hyperlink the street walking story here.)

Despite the CPM-sponsored protests on the campus, and his statement on Sunday (December 17) that it was "the beginning of the collapse of the constitutional machinery in the state," Governor Khan did not say that there was a law and order issue in Kerala. When specifically asked about law and order in the state, he said Kerala Police were the finest police in the country. "But they are not allowed to work. They are given instructions by their minister in charge, who is the chief minister. What can they do? I sympathise with them," he said.

He, however, said that the state was in the grip of a financial emergency. The Chief Secretary filed an affidavit in the Kerala High Court that the Kerala Government could not honour the financial guarantees it had given, he said. "So there is already a financial emergency in the state," he said.