Priya Varghese, wife of KK Ragesh, private secretary to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has refuted allegations that her appointment as Associate Professor at the Kannur University bypassed norms. Priya Varghese, in a Facebook post on August 15, said that the reports that other candidates scored higher marks than her to be recruited to the post, are lies.
Priya was appointed to the Malayalam department of the university paving the way for a political row with allegations that she was awarded the highest mark in the interview. It was alleged that she got the post, despite other candidates securing higher scores in terms of the required qualifications like teaching experience, published research works etc. Her husband KK Ragesh, a leader from Kannur, is also a former Rajya Sabha MP.
"The application for the post was submitted online as it was the Covid pandemic time. The score of a candidate will be automatically generated after filling up the data sheet online. The digits (scores) that are shown as secured (by her and another candidate in news reports as response to a RTI query) are those online generated scores. These scores usually get verified on the day of the interview. But in this case, since the interview was also online, no verification was done. Hence the scores (156 for Priya and 651 for another candidate), are just claims. The University has not verified those yet," Priya explained.
On August 13, reports suggested that Priya had scored very less compared to another candidate Joseph Scaria. The reports said that Priya's total score was 156 and Joseph Scaria's was 651. Priya's FB post explained this huge difference in scores. "I had (while applying online) given details only of a few articles of mine as published ones. I was not sure, as the wife of a Communist who is always afraid of social auditing, that I could put all my published works. If I had done so, I would have scored for all that. My scores, as per the response for the RTI query, would have been at least double. The soft copy of all the works published (mentioned in the application) have been sent to the University for plagiarism test. And the controversies were raised after that. (sic)"
Another allegation against Priya was that she did not possess the required years of teaching experience to be appointed as an Assistant Professor. "The UGC has unambiguously made it clear in the regulations that the research scores would be used to shortlist candidates (apparently not to make the final selection). It's not because KK Ragesh had made any promise that UGC Chairman will be made the VC," she commented, taking a dig at the media persons.