Students of Banaras Hindu University have opposed the proposal by the University to appoint Nita Ambani, wife of industrialist Mukesh Ambani as a visiting professor.

According to sources, BHU’s Social Sciences Department had recently sent a proposal to Reliance Foundation asking Nita Ambani to join the university as a visiting faculty at their Women Study Centre.

After that, a student group of 40, on Tuesday, protested outside the Vice-Chancellor Rakesh Bhatnagar’s residence on the campus and submitted a memorandum.

Research scholar student Shubham Tiwari, who was protesting along with the other students expressed their point by saying that the step would set a wrong example.

“Being the wife of a rich person is not an achievement and these people cannot be our icons. If you talk about women empowerment, then invite icons like Arunima Sinha, Bachendri Pal, Mary Kom or Kiran Bedi,” Tiwari said.

Dean of the Social Sciences faculty, Kaushal Kishore Mishra said, “We do academic and research work related to women empowerment, along with graduation and post-graduation courses. Following the BHU tradition of involving philanthropic industrialists, we sent a letter to the Reliance Foundation asking Nita Ambani to join the Women Study Centre as a visiting professor so that we can benefit from her experience. We did this because the Reliance Foundation has done a lot of work in the field of women empowerment.”

The proposal has been sent only to Nita Ambani but administration said that the other two women considered for the remaining two visiting professor posts were that of Priti Adani, the wife of industrialist Gautam Adani, and Usha Mittal, the wife of UK-based steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal.

However, later the Spokesperson of Reliance Industries clarified the news to be fake and stated that no invitation has been received from BHU.