New JNU V-C Santishree denies having Twitter handle ever
Twitter handle “@SantishreeD” was deactivated on Monday
New Delhi, Feb. 9 (Delhi Crown): Newly-appointed JNU V-C Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit has denied having a Twitter account amid controversy over tweets allegedly posted from an account named after her.
“I am not active on social media. Never owned a Twitter account. It seems to be a manufactured [account] to suit the narrative,” Pandit was quoted as saying by an English daily.
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like Jamia and St Stephen’s”, and called farmer leaders, who protested against controversial farm laws that were later repealed, as “parasitic middlemen”.
The said Twitter handle was however deactivated by Monday evening.
An alumnus of JNU Pandit (59), she was a political science professor at Savitribai Phule Pune University before her appointment as JNU V-C.