Rajasthan officials to face action for anti-govt posts

Jaipur: Following in the footsteps of the Central government, Rajasthan, too, has cracked whip on government officials for adverse remarks against policies or decisions.

The Central government had imposed this restriction last year after an IAS officer Ajay Gangwar in Madhya praised India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, on Facebook, and ‘liked’ a post that criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Now, issuing a similar circular, the department of personnel (DOP) in Rajasthan has said that disciplinary action will be taken against employees for tarnishing the government’s image through their social media posts.

The circular effectively puts a curb on text or pictorial messages, through social media platforms including Whatsapp, criticising the government. The government is the view that many employees spend a lot of time on social media posting comments directed at senior officials or the functioning of the government. In a way, the state government has its merit considering two instances where senior civil servants found posting controversial matters on social media. In 2016, IPS Pankaj Choudhary levelled allegations of corruption and irregularities against a senior IPS officer ADG Rajeev Dasot on his Facebook page.

This year, controversial IAS officer Sanjay Dixit, caused outrage by posting ‘fake’ news from his twitter handle. Mr Dixit  is known for posting pro-Hindutva and anti-Islam tweets despite being in active government service, had posted a news from fake propaganda website, Postcard News, accusing the Karnataka government of charging ‘Rs 10 lakhs to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi’. He later deleted his tweet after Karnataka government issuing a rebuttal making it clear that the tweet posted by Dixit was fake.