JNU VC Santishree Dhulipadi Pandit on viral notice: Conspiracy against me, never had a Twitter account

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has named Professor Santishree Dhulipadi Pandit as its new and first woman Vice Chancellor. But soon after, the new VC found herself in the midst of a social media storm after some Twitter users started circulating a post from an unverified Twitter account carrying her name.

The controversial Twitter account by the name @SantishreeD has now been deactivated. This Twitter handle carried her full name, but instead of the user's photo, it had a goddess as the display picture. There have been no tweets from the account since May, 2021. 

An alleged notice was also floated on Twitter which had grammatical mistakes.

Speaking to a leading media house, the new VC said that she did not have a Twitter account. She further states that the account in question has been hacked and somebody internally from JNU has done this. According to Prof Pandit, her daughter who is a cyber security engineer had closed her account six years ago.

Meanwhile, in a message to the students and faculty members of JNU, Prof Santishree Dhulipadi Pandit said that 'the focus would be constructing Indo-centric narratives'. On the other hand, BJP MP Varun Gandhi has said that 'such mediocre appointments serve to damage our human capital and our youth's future'.

Her controversial tweets 

One of the tweets, posted from the handle in 2020 referred to JNU students as 'losers who have lost control'.

The Twitter handle also calls for a ban on funding to institutions like Jamia Millia Islamia and St Stephen's.

Another expresses opposition to the farmers' movement termed them 'parasitic middlemen' led by 'Yo Ya'.

There were also personal tweets like one allegedly carrying a photograph of Prof Pandit's mother.