Calcutta University will not hold any meeting of its syndicate until the new nominee of the state higher education council is included in the university’s highest decision-making body, vice-chancellor Ashutosh Ghosh said on Monday.

The university is also awaiting a decision from the education department on who will represent the department as their nominee to the syndicate, he said.

Omprakash Mishra, a former vice-chancellor who fought as a Trinamool Congress candidate in the 2021 Assembly polls, resigned as the state higher education council’s nominee to the syndicate after the BJP was voted to power on May 4.

“I resigned on May 7, since a new government has come to power and the council will soon have a new president,” Mishra, a former JU professor, said.

Former education minister Bratya Basu earlier headed the council.

The education department’s nominee to the syndicate, chosen during the tenure of the erstwhile Mamata Banerjee government, had also declined to attend the syndicate meeting following the change of guard, said a CU official.

The syndicate meeting was last held on April 17.

“The syndicate meeting has been put on hold till the time we get to know who will represent the council and the department in the syndicate. It’s better to make decisions in the syndicate by keeping the council and the department in the loop,” the VC said.

“During a meeting that the VCs had with the senior education officials last week, we were told that the meeting of the highest decision-making bodies can be held. But we prefer to hold the syndicate meeting only after we get to know who will represent the council and the department at the syndicate,” he added.

The Bengal governor, the ex-officio chancellor of state-aided universities, reportedly told Jadavpur University vice-chancellor Chiranjib Bhattacharjee last week not to hold any meeting of the university’s executive council.

A CU official said the syndicate meeting needs to be held so the academic calendar can be finalised and the number of class days increased.

Several college principals told CU last month that undergraduate students will struggle to write their exams unless they have at least three months of classes in each semester.

They said the number of class days had fallen to 40 to 45 per semester because of too many unplanned breaks. They urged CU to adopt an academic calendar mandating at least 90 class days every semester.

“The academic calendar that the university has drawn needs to be reported to and approved by the syndicate. We are looking forward to holding a meeting at the earliest,” the vice-chancellor said.

“If there is too much delay, we have to think of holding an emergency meeting,” he added.