A young IAS officer of Chhattisgarh has been transferred after he questioned achievements of founder-member of Bharatiya Jan Sangh Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyaya in a post on Facebook.
A young IAS officer of Chhattisgarh has been transferred after he questioned achievements of founder-member of Bharatiya Jan Sangh Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyaya in a post on Facebook.
Shiv Anant Tayal, a 2012 batch IAS officer, was shunted out as chief executive officer (CEO) of Kanker district panchayat, and posted in the state secretariat when his post questioning public standing of the saffron icon set the social media on fire.
“Can’t find a single work of his (Pt. Upadhyaya) authorship or scholarship to gauge his ideological stance and that there is not a single election where he won a popular election,” the controversial FB post said.
To support his view, he quoted a repository written by historian Rama Chandra Guha in his book “Makers of Modern India”, saying, -"There is no mention of Upadhyaya”. The officer's remarks stirred a storm in the ruling BJP circle.
“It is a sign of immaturity and shows lack of understanding,”Chhattisgarh BJP spokesman Sanjay Srivastav said on Saturday.
The state BJP government took a strong exception to the post and shifted him to state secretariat. “The government has taken cognizance of the officer's post. He has been issued a show-cause notice and transferred to state secretariat,” a government spokesman said. Incidentally, Mr Tayal deleted his post after it drew criticism from several quarters.
-"I raised some spontaneous questions on Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. It was never an intention to raise questions on credibility of stalwarts or to offend anyone. Nevertheless, if that happened, I am deeply apologetic and express regret,-" his post said.
Mr Tayal's post comes close on the heels of another IAS officer Alex Paul Menon posting a comment on Facebook, questioning the Indian judiciary. -"Is there a bias in India's legal system with 94 per cent of those on death sentence being either Dalits or Muslims-", his stated. He, however, expressed regret over the post later.
