Row over tweets: New JNU vice-chancellor denies having Twitter account

One of the tweets purportedly referred to Mahatma Gandhi’s killing and claimed his assassin Nathuram Godse thought the “action was important and identified the solution for a united India”

NEW DELHI: Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit, who was appointed as Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) vice-chancellor on Monday, has denied having a Twitter account amid controversy over tweets allegedly posted from an account named after her.

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) vice-chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit. (mei.org.in)

“I am not active on social media. Never owned a Twitter account. It seems to be a manufactured [account] to suit the narrative,” Pandit told HT.

Soon after her appointment as JNU’s first woman vice-chancellor, screenshots of old tweets purportedly posted from the Twitter account @SantishreeD were circulated on social media and drew criticism.

A tweet posted from the account referred to Mahatma Gandhi’s killing and claimed his assassin Nathuram Godse thought the “action was important and identified the solution for a united India”.

Other tweets from the account advocated an end to funding for “communal campuses like Jamia and St Stephen’s”, and called farmer leaders, who protested against controversial farm laws that were later repealed, as “parasitic middlemen”.

By Monday evening, the account was deactivated.

Pandit, 59, an alumnus of JNU, was a political science professor at Savitribai Phule Pune University before her appointment as vice-chancellor.