From Our Special Correspondent

Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Jul 18: Though the bitter political fight against his bete noir former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in the recent Chamundeshwari assembly constituency election was won by JD(S) leader G T Deve Gowda, who has since become Karnataka’s Higher Education Minister, the latter is nursing his grievances against his political rival.

GT Deve Gowda, who was reluctant to head the higher education department because he studied barely till Class 8 and was finally persuaded to accept the portfolio, has taken his battle directly with Siddaramaiah by scrapping the appointments of persons by the latter as members of university syndicates.

The minister on Wednesday issued ordered removal of appointments to 19 universities Syndicate members.

The Minister is said to have turned his focus on the appointments the Siddaramaiah government made to Syndicates of about 25 universities in Karnataka.

The appointments were cleared by either the then Higher Education Minister Basavaraja Rayareddy or Siddaramaiah himself.

The Karnataka State Universities Act, 2000, stipulates a three year term for nominated members.

A member can be fired mid-way only if his or her conduct is found to be questionable.

A syndicate member said they came to know about the moves to end their term from the Higher Education department when they got calls.

Devegowda said that new syndicate members of public universities would be appointed soon.

Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who is heading the coordination committee of the JD(S)-Congress ruling combine, had recently asked Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy not to remove Syndicate members nominated by the previous Congress government.

The government has nominated academic experts from all categories as Syndicate and Executive Council members, Siddaramaiah had said in his letter to the Chief Minister.