Vijayawada: Heated arguments took place on Tuesday between the ruling coalition members and the Op-position in the Legislative Council on the resignation of 17 vice-chancellors in the state. The Opposition members alleged that vice-chancellors were threatened and forced to resign after the formation of NDA coalition government.

TDP members B Tirumala Naidu and P Ashok Babu participating in the discussion on Motion of Thanks to state Governor’s address, narrated the policies and achievements of the NDA coali-tion government.

At this juncture, YSRCP member P Chandrasekhar Reddy alleged that NDA government failed to fulfil the assurances given to the people before the polls. He said no assistance was given to the farmers and teacher posts were not filled. He further said 17 vice-chancellors working in the universities in the state were forced to resign after NDA coalition government was formed.

Taking strong exception to the allegation, HRD minister Nara Lokesh challenged the member Chandrasekhar Reddy to prove the charge and offered to order a probe. He said levelling base-less allegations was not correct and asked the MLC to withdraw the remarks made against the government. The YSRCP member stated that some vice-chancellors in the resignation letters mentioned that they had resigned due to oral orders given by the higher education department. The YSRCP MLCs showed some newspaper clippings on the resignations of 17 vice-chancellors.

Lokesh insisted them to show the proof that the NDA leaders or the ministers threatened the V-Cs to resign. He said he was ready to conduct the probe if evidence is shown to him. He said 500 applications were received from the aspirants and social justice was done in appoint-ment of vice-chancellors by the coalition government.

Legislative Council chairman K Moshen Raju intervened and stated that he would verify the records and remove, if any objectionable comments were made by the Opposition members in the House. As the heated debate continued, he adjourned the Council for five minutes. Lat-er, the session continued and arguments took place between the TDP and YSRCP members. Leader Opposition in the Council Botcha Satyanarayana demanded that either judicial inquiry or departmental inquiry should be made into the resignation of vice-chancellors during the past few weeks.

Lokesh said the inquiry will also be conducted into the activities took place in the YSRCP rule also. Responding to it, Satyanarayana said the YSRCP members are not afraid of any inquiry and asked the minister to conduct a detailed probe into the resignations of V-Cs. Chandrasekhar Reddy said the resignation letters submitted by the V-Cs are the evidence as some of them clearly mentioned that they had resigned due to the oral orders received from the higher education department. Not satisfied with the reply given by Lokesh, Satyanarayana and YSRCP members staged a walk out. Satyanarayana said there is no clarity on the reply given by the minister on resignations of the vice-chancellors.