Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Even the offer of making her the vice-chancellor of its proposed university failed to stop Prof Yogeshwari Phatak from quitting Prestige Institute of Management & Research (PIMR), which is marred by internal politics.
When the institute got A++ rating from NAAC, Prestige Group of Institutes chairman Davish Jain had announced publicly that Phatak will be founder vice-chancellor of its proposed university.
However, the announcement did not go down well with Prestige Group of Institutes CEO Anil Vajpayee and he had left the programme mid-way, in which the announcement was made.
Though he had left the meeting citing some personal engagement, Vajpayee’s walk-out had exposed his disliking of Phatak.
Vajpayee camp members had then got active and created bad blood in the institute. “Vajpayee’s men made such an atmosphere that many faculty members left the institute in last two years,” a teacher of PIMR said wishing anonymity.
He said that Vajpayee wanted to get rid of Phatak at any cost so he made things difficult for her. Phatak, who had direct access to chairman Jain earlier, now had Vajpayee in between as he was CEO.
The situation started getting so humiliating for Phatak that she finally resigned. Her resignation not only stunned teaching and non-teaching employees of the institute but also chairman Jain.
He immediately decided to hold a meeting with staffers, who are losing trust in the institute following the ongoing murky politics.
In the meeting held on Friday, he announced that deputy director Dr Murli Dhar Panga will be in-charge director of PIMR PG campus until he manages to convince Phatak to take back her resignation.
If Vajpayee had his say, someone from his camp would have been made in-charge director. Some thought that Harshvardhan Halve, who is in-charge director of the PIMR UG campus, will also be made in-charge of PG campus as well. But he was not made in charge of PG campus for two reasons. First, he does not possess an MBA degree to be the academic head of a B-school.
Second, Jain did not want someone from Vajpayee’s camp to be in-charge director else it would become very difficult for him to convince Phatak to take back her resignation.
