Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan talks tough, IAS officers call off mass leave protest

Thiruvananthapuram: The IAS officers backed out from their threat to go on a mass casual leave in protest against the Vigilance 'harassment' of senior officers following the tough talk by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan at a closed-door session in his office at the secretariat on Monday morning. The IAS officers association did not submit a memorandum as it had originally proposed. It was still being drafted, said association sources.

They claimed the move to withdraw from the agitation was on the basis of Mr. Vijayan's 'assurances.' But the statement issued by the chief minister's office in the evening was blank on the question of any assurances in line with the stand he took at the press conference after the meeting with the IAS officers.

The mood at the meeting was sombre and there was no pretence of any negotiations. While the chief minister opened his talks by expressing his strong resentment towards the move by the officers to take leave terming it as the first such incident in the state, additional chief secretary K.M. Abraham did much of the talking for the IAS officers. The misuse of powers by the Vigilance led by Mr Jacob Thomas and the government inaction on the corruption charges against Mr Thomas were the issues they raised. "It was not a meeting to negotiate terms, but to discuss the issues. The officers had brought the issues to the attention of the chief minister," chief secretary S.M. Vijayanand told DC. Backing the Vigilance actions, the chief minister said, “earlier also many IAS officers had faced Vigilance probes and were even suspended. Emotions are quite natural when the Vigilance initiates actions. But emotions and actions are different things.”

IAS association sources said that about 70 to 75 officers were willing to take casual leave. While the chief minister defended Mr Jacob Thomas stating that the Vigilance had probed into the allegations pertaining to corruption, IAS sources told DC that the chief minister seemed to have been misled. “The report of the Vigilance was a single page report, that too conducted while Mr. Thomas was serving as additional director in Vigilance. The report of Mr K.M. Abraham on the matter is a comprehensive one that runs into nearly 200 pages and even identifies the middle men in the deal,” said sources.

The eight-member delegation representing the IAS officers’ association also included Tom Jose, Rajeev Sadananadan, Sheela Thomas, Subrata Biswas, V.S. Senthil, Mara Pandiyan and V. Venu.