Patna, Sep 1 (IANS): The tussle between governor house and Education department may intensify in coming days as the principal secretary to the governor of Bihar, Robert L Chongthu, has issued fresh directives to the vice chancellors of all the universities of the state to follow the decisions of the Bihar Governor Rajendra Arlekar.

A letter in this regard was issued from Raj Bhawan which directed all VC to follow the decisions of the Bihar governor who is also a chancellor of all universities.

The letter said that there is no need to follow the guidelines of authorities other than the Governor. The decision was taken amid additional chief secretary K. K. Pathak stopping the salaries of VC and Pro VC of BR Ambedkar Bihar University BRABU Muzaffarpur recently.

The education department had also stopped the financial transactions of the university as well.

Earlier, Bihar education department has stopped payment of BRABU Muzaffarpur and also asked the Bihar governor to define how universities of state are independent institutions if the state government is providing funds to a tune of Rs 4,000 crore every year and the money belongs to taxpayers.

The department had also issued an advertisement for the appointment of Vice Chancellors of five universities of the state on August 22.

The five universities are KDS Sanskrit university Darbhanga, Bhim Rao Ambedkar Bihar University Muzaffarpur, Lalit Narayan Mithila University Darbhanga, Patna university Patna and Jay Prakash University Chapra.

The Raj Bhawan of Bihar viewed all this as a violation of the governor's right as he is also holding the post of Chancellor of all universities in the state.

On August 23, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar met the governor and tried to cool off tension between Raj Bhawan and the education department.