Speculations keep disgruntled IAS officer busy

Over the last two days, disgruntled young IAS officer Kannan Gopinathan has been quite busy answering queries about his entry to electoral politics, after a section of media in Kerala reported that Kannan was a probable left-front candidate for the upcoming by-poll to Vattiyoorkavu Assembly seat in Thiruvananthapuram.

Gopinathan said that so far, he had no plans of entering politics and no left-front leaders had asked him about it. "After some media reports that I am a probable left-front candidate, I am getting lots of enquiries over the last two days from friends, relatives and media. I don't consider politics a wrong career to chose, though I had not made any thoughts of entering electoral politics," Gopinathan told DH.

A senior left-front leader in Kerala also told DH that he had not come across Gopinathan's name as a probable candidate from the left-front.

A native of Kottayam district in Kerala, Gopinathan decided to quit the civil services last month, expressing resentment over the restrictions over freedom of expression, especially in the backdrop of the developments at Jammu and Kashmir.

A 2012 batch IAS officer serving at Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Gopinathan also caught attention for the voluntary service he rendered during the floods in 2018 without revealing his identity.

There were reports that Gopinathan's decision to quit the civil services came after he was served a notice by the Union Home Ministry for charges like misconduct.

In the 2016 polls, CPM's candidate was pushed to third place in the Vattiyoorkavu seat. The BJP, which emerged second in 2016, with senior leader Kummanam Rajasekharan having high hopes of winning the seat, which has now become vacant after Congress MLA K Muraleedharan got elected to the Lok Sabha.