CHENNAI: Language is not a barrier to building an institution and bringing excellence to it, said M K Surappa, the newly appointed Vice-Chancellor (V-C) of Anna University on Friday. He claimed he was unaware of the opposition to his appointment from various political parties that sought to label him as an outsider since he is a Kannadiga.
“I don’t think language is a barrier to building an institution and bringing excellence. The leader should be par excellence and should have integrity, passion and commitment to the institution and people of the nation or the State where he is living,” he said, in a telephonic interview with TNIE.Governor and Chancellor of the university Banwarilal Purohit on Thursday appointed Surappa as the V-C for three years. The post has remained vacant for the last two years; two search committees for the post were formed and dissolved; the third committee short-listed Surappa and two others from a list of 170 candidates .
Opposition parties have strongly condemned the appointment of K M Surappa, hailing from Karnataka, as the Vice-Chancellor of Anna University. PMK leader S Ramadoss has slammed the Governor for appointing a “corrupt” Surappa as V-C. “The appointment of Surappa is atrocious and the claim of Raj Bhavan that due process was followed is a façade,” he alleged in a statement, adding that Surappa’s stint at IIT faced severe criticism. “Due to his delayed decisions, the construction cost of Punjab IIT (IIT Ropar) rose to `1,958 crore from `760 crore,” Ramadoss charged. Surappa faced charges of plagiarism and had a poor relationship with his subordinates, he added.
The criticism from other political parties had a stronger linguistic tone. “At a time when the Cauvery protests are raging in Tamil Nadu, the Governor’s appointment of Surappa from Karnataka as the V-C of Anna University is not acceptable,” DMK working president and Leader of Opposition MK Stalin said. In a Facebook post, he said academics, who were “sons of the soil,” should not be belittled” by such appointments.
Statements from both Communist parties in the State and SDPI questioned if the Governor could not spot even one able Tamil candidate for the post.MDMK founder Vaiko sought withdrawal of Surappa’s appointment and said that only an academic from Tamil Nadu should be nominated to the coveted post. Kamal Haasan, actor-turned-politician, in a tweet, said, “We asked for water from Karnataka and we get a Vice-Chancellor from Karnataka, instead. The gulf between people and the government cannot be more obvious....”“A candidate for the VC post should be chosen purely based on his academic credentials and ability to manage an institution and not on his linguistic background,” said E Balagurusamy, former VC of Anna University, adding that the search committee and the Governor had followed a rigorous selection process.
Taking a dig at politicisation of institutions, Balagurusamy said, “Because of political interference, we had one VC who showed preference to those from a certain caste, followed by one who preferred a certain religion, followed by another secular one who favoured anyone with money.”Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar clarified, “The appointment was made, based on the reports given by the search committee. The Governor has done this within the purview. The state government is in no way linked to this.”
State BJP leader Tamilisai Soundarajan said the choice was not influenced by any political party but Surappa was preferred for his credentials.A Narayanan, a social activist, who has been raising voice often against corruption in the education system, said, “there is a sense of hope and satisfaction that our timely judicial interventions have helped bring about fixed time-frame, minimum standards and qualification norms for search committees and VC selection process.”
Not the first to face political flak in Tamil Nadu
Suryanarayana Sastry was recently appointed as the V-C of Ambedkar Law University and Premeela Gurumurthy for the Tamil Nadu Music and Fine Arts University. Both appointments were criticised since they were considered “outsiders”