Less than a month after IAS officer Kannan Gopinathan resigned from civil services, another IAS officer has submitted his resignation, citing the direction the country is heading.
S. Sasikanth Senthil, a 2009 batch Karnataka cadre IAS officer and Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada district, resigned from Indian Administrative Service (IAS) on Friday, saying that it was “unethical” on his part to continue as a civil servant when “fundamental building blocks of diverse democracy are being compromised”.
The coming days would present extremely difficult challenges in the basic fabric of the Nation. As such it would be better to be outside IAS to continue his work, Senthil writes in his letter.
40-year-old Senthil from the 2009 batch hails from Tamil Nadu. He served as Assistant Commissioner in Ballari between 2009 and 2012 and held the post of Chief Executive Officer of Shivamogga Zilla Panchayat for two terms. He was also the Deputy Commissioner of Chitradurga and Raichur districts. He was the Director in the Mines and Geology Department since November 2016. He assumed charge as Deputy Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada district in June 2017 and was hailed as one of the most proactive DCs the district had seen.
On August 21, IAS officer Kannan Gopinathan from the AGMUT cadre, who was serving as the secretary of the power, urban development and town and country planning departments of the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, resigned from service saying he wanted his freedom of expression back. Gopinathan also claimed he did so over “denial of freedom of expression” to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, and added that more than the scrapping of special status under Article 370 “the lack of response” to it was more upsetting.
“None was asking the government. Suddenly we all became part of the government and all of us felt obligated to be part of something historic… When institutions fail, individuals should stand up. There is no other way,” he recently said at a public gathering in Chennai.
