SaTYa paL caNNoT be chaNceLLor
Meanwhile, it has been alleged by a top Cabinet Minister and some BJP leaders that Verma was “playing” in the hands of some Congress leaders and certain disgruntled saffron party leaders, who were keen to stoke the fire by getting the CBI to register an FIR in the French Rafale purchase deal.
It is being alleged that certain legal hawks of the Congress had “helped” Verma in preparing his petition for the Supreme Court. It looks like it will be a long battle, which may find its echo heard even in the 2019 general elections. The Minister of State for Human Resource Development (Higher Education), Water Resources and Ganga Rejuvenation, Dr Satya Pal Singh, is a very religious and spiritual man. He has been waiting for long to become the Chancellor of Haridwar’s reputed Gurukula Kangri Vishwavidyalaya. It seems the former Mumbai Police Commissioner won’t be able to see his dream coming true.
Top officers in his ministry had sought legal opinion to avoid any unnecessary controversy. The Law Ministry clarified that the Chancellor’s post was not an “office of profit”, but that the university’s decision to appoint Singh had been challenged in court of law.
Singh was advised by his bureaucrats not to accept the offer since the matter was “sub judice”. Surprisingly, the HRD Ministry took over two months to offer this advice. Singh is very unhappy about this undue delay.
Singh was looking forward to heading Gurukal Kangri as he has a literary, artistic and scientific bent of mind and has special interests like study of comparative religions, education, culture, history and spirituality. Among the several books that he has written, two, The Search for Man in Hindi ( Talaash Insan Kee) and Science & Spirituality are quite popular. Currently, he is working on four books: Encounters with Politicians, Before Joining Politics; The Challenges Before Indian Police; The Timeless Time; and The Communal Harmony, the Roots We Have Ignored.
In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Singh emerged as a “giant killer” by defeating Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh from Baghpat.