Andhra Pradesh - Nalgonda   

Bitter experience for V-C in Nalgonda

NALGONDA: Teacher’s Day eve left a learned professor with a bitter experience. He is none other than a Vice-Chancellor and who had to ‘forego’ his chair and stand on the dais only to accommodate politicians and people’s representatives at an official function.

It was a grand programme organised to lay the foundation stone for Nalgonda University at Anneperthy near here on Tuesday. Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, Union Minister S. Jaipal Reddy and other people’s representatives were invited to grace the occasion.

The meticulous plans of the Vice-Chancellor V. Gangadhar to make the programme a success went awry as a legislator took control of “dais management.”

Following the ‘diktats” of the MLA, the Vice-Chancellor had to cut short his speech. Let alone the speech, he was made to cancel the traditional “jyothi prajwalana (lighting of the lamp)” for unknown reasons.

The Vice-Chancellor was supposed to sit along with the Chief Minister and other dignitaries in the front row on the dais but he was sent back as no seat was left for him.

While Prof. Gangadhar, new Registrar Mutyam Reddy and principal Venkateswarlu stood on the dais, a couple of politicians, including the District Congress Committee president S. Mallesh Goud, occupied the available seats.

The Vice-Chancellor’s fervent pleas to bring a couple of chairs on to the dais went unheeded by guards. Surprisingly, no dignitary bothered to offer a chair for him. It left an awkward and embarrassing moment for professors, lecturers, teachers and media men who gathered there.

“The schedule was rescheduled on the dais and the Vice-Chancellor and the Registrar were completely ignored. We felt sad to know that lighting of lamp was completely cancelled. The leaders lack minimum courtesy,” an official told The Hindu on Wednesday.

Asked for his reaction to the unsavoury episode, Prof. Gangadhar, who had put in more than three decades of experience in teaching and administration, sought to downplay it. “I asked for chairs but the police didn’t give them. It doesn’t mean that we were belittled by others. After all, the leaders on the dais are the university’s guests and we have to honour our guests. Don’t try to read much into it.”

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