An association of teachers at Visva-Bharati on Monday wrote to President Droupadi Murmu, requesting her to take urgent action to save the central university from the alleged wrongdoings of its vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty.

The letter from the Visva-Bharati University Faculty Association has come a day before Murmu reaches Santiniketan to attend the varsity’s convocation. The President is Visva-Bharati’s Visitor as well.

“It seems that the sole purpose of Prof. Bidyut Chakrabarty, the incumbent Vice-Chancellor, is to persecute and insult the stakeholders, particularly the faculty members. His draconian and illegal actions and abuses have done irreparable damage to this great institution and severely affected a large number of faculty members. In the NIRF ranking, Visva-Bharati’s position of the universities has gone down from 31 to 98 during his tenure and NAAC has given a very poor grade,” the letter that was mailed to the President on Monday reads.

“We earnestly request you to take urgent remedial actions and save this Institute of National Importance and its stakeholders,” it added.

Chakrabarty had been chosen by the Narendra Modi government to helm the university in November 2018. Although Chakrabarty assumed the charge with a promise of effecting a turnaround at Visva-Bharati, there are allegations that he is trying to saffronise the varsity whose chancellor is Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

A slew of disciplinary actions initiated by Chakrabarty against students, teachers and non-teaching staff had also created an environment of conflict on the campus.

The letter contained a set of instances of wrongdoings by VC Chakrabarty. The letter referred to how the varsity spent its money to fight legal cases against faculties and stakeholders even after facing blows from the judiciary.

The letter also referred to a Calcutta High Court order that recently imposed a fine of Rs 1,00,000 on the varsity for taking action against Professor Debotosh Sinha of the department of social work.

A senior varsity teacher said the vindictive attitude of the varsity administration was exposed within hours of sending the letter to the President, as seven teachers were showcaused on Monday evening apparently for signing a petition, along with important members of Bengal’s cultural fraternity, in February.