Kerala IAS officer Divya Iyer praises CPM leader, faces backlash; CM Pinarayi steps in

An online backlash has erupted against IAS officer Divya S Iyer after she praised Kerala chief minister’s former private secretary, who has been appointed the Kannur district secretary of the ruling CPI(M).

However, the criticism led by some Congress leaders prompted Pinarayi Vijayan to come to Iyer's defence, accusing the grand old party of perpetuating a “patriarchal mindset.”

Iyer, a 2014-batch Kerala cadre officer is married to Congress leader KS Sabarinadhan, the son of the late Congress veteran G Karthikeyan. She is currently serving as the managing director of the Vizhinjam International Seaport.

In a social media post, Iyer praised CPI(M) leader KK Ragesh for his tenure as the chief minister’s private secretary, saying, “This KKR (K K Ragesh) shield is enviable even to Karna (of Mahabharat). As a person who had watched his last three years of official life, there are several virtues which I could copy from his life. He is a textbook of loyalty, an inkwell of hard work. Thank you for always considering us with utmost respect — an art that is getting endangered in power corridors across the globe.”

According to The Indian Express report, the online criticism sparked by Iyer's post led chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan to respond, dismissing the trolling as the work of “extremely immature minds.”

He defended Iyer on Wednesday, saying, “It (the trolling) should be seen as only the chanting of extremely immature minds. Divya is an IAS officer working in the government sector. She had made a public reaction on what she had witnessed. They (Congress) see only the politics of her husband. Their thought, which is part of male dominance, is that she should not adopt a stand different from that of politics. She is being attacked over that thought.”

‘Officers who are servile to Pinarayi Vijayan’

While senior Congress legislator and Kerala opposition leader VD Satheesan refrained from criticising her, the report quoted former MP and senior Congress leader K Muraleedharan as saying, “There are a few civil service officers who are servile to Pinarayi Vijayan. She is one among them… This flattery will be injurious to her in future.”

The report also quoted Youth Congress state president and MLA Rahul Mamkootathil making a veiled attack on Iyer.

“Whoever Karna was, he was on the side of Duryodhana against the side of Dharma until his death… So the question is, who is the greedy Duryodhana here,” Rahul said on Facebook.

Youth Congress leader Vijil Mohanan also took to Facebook, stating that Iyer should remember that she is not paid by the CPI(M) state headquarters.