Vijayakanth to protest Surappa’s posting on April 18

The actor, who usually goes soft on the BJP government, joined the ongoing contest in Tamil Nadu among the parties in hitting out at the BJP and charged that the Governor and the Union government are always acting against Tamil Nadu. He demanded that the Governor should recall the appointment of Surappa. If the Governor did not heed to the request, he would lead a protest rally to the Raj Bhavan, he said. When Tamils are capable enough to lead the ISRO and Google, the appointment of Surappa belonging to Karnataka as Vice-Chancellor of Anna University amounted to ignoring the capabilities of Tamils and offending their sentiments, he said. 

He said about 170 scholars had applied for the job of V-C and finally three names were selected. The Governor had not explained the criteria for selecting three of the scholars and rejecting the rest.  At a time when the unity between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka had been disrupted due to the Cauvery dispute, the appointment of Surappa is an act of insulting Tamils, Vijayakanth added. 

The post had remained vacant for the last 23 months since former Governor Vidyasagar Rao refused to appoint any one of the three nominees recommended by the search committee. The panel to select the Vice-Chancellor was also dissolved and a new panel headed by former Supreme Court judge Sirpurkar was formed, he recalled.