The newly appointed VC Sri Ghanta Chakrapani held a high-profile job in Telangana Public Service Commission in the previous government and is presently rewarded with the post of Vice Chancellor in the university where he served as a professor before joining the service commission. He holds a doctorate and hails from the journalism profession and maintained a very good reputation while being in the BRS government where his job in the Service Commission was indirectly a political post albeit through some foolproof mechanism of holding a post in a constitutional body. He had to lay down his office when his term ended and there is no provision in the constitution to reappoint a chairman for the next term.
Later, recently, he was appointed as the VC of the Rd. BRAO University by the present chief minister Revanth Reddy. In between there were reports/tweets about his cozying up to the present government. There were also rumours which need not be glorified for want of fool proof evidence.
There is nothing wrong in being aspirational and ambitious and being selected as the VC. Harish Rao tweeted him with a congratulatory message, even though Chakrapani never minced words in opposing the Congress and non-Telangana parties tooth and nail. Assuming he got the VC post under his merit and good reputation he was congratulated by many from BRS also. The VC eulogized Revanth Reddy when he visited his university to unveil a 15-foot Ambedkar statue.
All this when Revanth had no qualms in discarding and preventing public to visit the same at Hussain Sagar which is more than eight times taller than the one in the Open University only under the premise that it was unveiled by KCR during his term. With a journalism background, he could have taken the liberty of requesting the CM to throw open the statue at Hussain Sagar also to the public. As a mark of gratitude, there is nothing wrong for the VC to shower encomiums on Revanth as long as they don’t overdo them.
When eulogy exceeds its limits, it transforms itself into sarcasm making one wonder whether the VC is making fun of him or is he really praising him. When he compared him to PV Narasimha Rao, that was the last straw. There is zameen aasman difference between the two in any parameters you mention. It would have been nice if he praised him factually like Revanth is charismatic, heroic, and is a diamond to cut another diamond like KCR and show him his place which he did successfully. He could have further worshipped Revanth by comparing him with a Messiah of a dying party like Congress which was in the ICU till he took over and not only pulled it out but also pumped more vitamins and made the party a formidable one. Everyone thought no one could give a matching slang to KCR when Revanth stepped into INC.
Their slanging match entertained and misled the voters who were left with no choice but to believe every word of what Revanth paraded in election rallies. All these are facts and had Ghanta mentioned them, particularly when he is a journalist too, no one would have found fault with him but if you take a cursory glance at 58 comments to his tweet on X where he praised Revanth to the hilt, all of them were terribly critical of him and it looked like the painstakingly built reputation of the VC had gone down the drain.
It is difficult for him to retrieve that in the long term for his short-term gain this time. People are shocked that being in the journalism profession, how could he stoop so low when he got the VC post by his merit, and own standing in the SC community unless there is a deep-rooted political conspiracy against the man who respected him, honoured him and didn’t say a word against a person who has now changed his colours putting a chameleon to shame. He has to decide whether he is an academician or a politician knowing well that he can’t be both in one go. Maybe his next opportunity would be to leave academics and plunge into politics, step by step. As it is, he has given an impression of sailing on two boats and it remains to be seen which topples him first as his academic boat is entangled with legal hurdles. Hope he will cross that successfully.