Indian Express reported on Wednesday that its contributing editor and political scientist, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, had resigned as professor from Ashoka University the day before. This comes less than two years after he had stepped down as the vice-chancellor of the university.

While Mehta refused to comment on the matter when Newslaundry reached out to him, Ashoka University "sidestepped the question" when asked if Mehta's criticism of the government had anything to do with his exit.

Mehta had stepped down as vice chancellor in 2019 to “return to a more full-time academic life”. In a letter he wrote at the time, he said: "The contemporary world has unsettled so many of our political and philosophical assumptions, and I increasingly felt the need to reorient myself academically. Hence the decision to step down."

Mehta has been a vocal critic of the Modi government. In a 2020 interview with the Wire, he described the government as "fascist", saying: "India is governed by a regime whose sole raison d’etre is to find an adversarial rallying point and crush it by brute force."