Rabindra Bharati University Vice Chancellor Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury on Saturday said though he had offered to resign following a controversy during a spring festival held in the campus, he changed his decision to quit after talking to the higher education minister and will continue in office.
A section of young men and women who took part in 'Basanta Utsav' on Thursday ahead of Holi posed with cuss words written with colours on their bodies, photos of which went viral on social media and raised a storm.
A group of four women in sarees had a line of a famous Rabindranath Tagore song written on their bodies to which an expletive was added. Another image showed three kurta-pyjama clad young men posing in front of four women with a Bengali expletive meaning "care a damn" painted on their chests.
In the wake of the incident, the VC had sought to quit.
"I have reconsidered my earlier decision. I am not quitting. I talked to the minister and decided to discharge my responsibility as VC. I was also requested by numerous students not to leave the institute which became a part of me. Both prompted me to reconsider my decision," the VC said.
Higher Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said he had a long telephonic conversation with the VC and told him that they should fight together to ensure the youth are not misguided.
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"He listened to me and agreed," said Chatterjee who had earlier commented that the incident crossed all limits of decency.
BJP state unit president Dilip Ghosh and Congress Rajya Sabha MP Pradip Bhattacharya on Saturday expressed shock over the conduct of those young men and women.
"It is a social disease and it is more alarming since a section of the youth of Bengal are distorting Tagore's lines in the most slanderous way while celebrating a festival like Basanto Utsav," Ghosh said.
Bhattacharya also echoed the same sentiments.
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the students' wing of the RSS, claimed that the "misrule" of the Left Front and the Trinamool Congress has caused cultural decay among the youths of West Bengal leading to this incident.
The university authorities filed a complaint with the police following the social media storm.
The VC had said those found in the photographs were not students of the RBU.
"We have to decide whether to regulate the entry of outsiders to our campuses during the Basanta Utsav from next year," he said.
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