Kalyani University is all set to hold faculty council elections on Thursday despite a state government directive not to hold any elections of academic and administrative bodies in the varsity without revising its statutes to incorporate the provisions of the University Laws Amendment Act 2011 formulated by the Trinamul government.

Vice-chancellor Alok Banerjee recently issued a notification announcing that elections will be held for seven teachers, including four professors, two associate professors and one assistant professor, from the faculty council to represent it in the varsity’s executive council, one of the two highest policy-making bodies of the institution.

Some teachers and non-teaching staff have termed the election “illegal” and threatened to stop it. “The university would be violating the amendments to the university act if it conducts the elections on June 7,” said Alok Ghosh a teacher at the university. “We will not allow the authorities to conduct the elections that day.”

The teachers accused the vice-chancellor, known to be close to the CPM, of being driven by a “political motive”. The teachers said the 89-member faculty council is at present packed with pro-CPM teachers and so the VC is “desperate to conduct the elections now to ensure that all seven members from the faculty council who would become members of the executive council are CPM sympathisers”.

“The authorities should conduct the faculty council election only after reconstituting the faculty council conforming the amendments,” a teacher said.

Vice-chancellor Banerjee, however, said there was nothing wrong in holding the elections. “The election is necessary for the benefit of students as decisions on major academic issues are pending because the executive council does not have faculty council representatives,” Banerjee said.

The Mamata Banerjee government formulated the University Laws Amendment Act to amend certain provisions in the act that governs 14 state-aided universities to depoliticise higher education.