Deputy Tahsildar suspended for using casteist slur against CPI MLA in Kasaragod

Kasaragod: Kasaragod Collector Inbasekar K has suspended Vellarikundu taluk deputy Thasildar A Pavithran for abusing and using casteist slurs on Kanhangad MLA and former Revenue Minister E Chandrasekharan in a Facebook post.

Though the official withdrew the post within hours and posted an apology the following day, the Collector noted in the suspension order that Pavithran was a repeat offender and had tarnished the Revenue Department's reputation with the post.

In a Facebook post on September 12, Pavithran wrote: "E Chandrasekaran Nair…. He is the worst revenue minister I have seen since I joined the service." The three-time Kanhangad MLA was the Revenue Minister in the first Pinarayi Vijayan government from 2016 to 2021, and he does not include his caste in his name.

Pavithran used a casteist slur to say that, despite being the most senior member of the Joint Council of State Service Organisations, the CPI's government employees' union, he did not find acceptance among a certain section of people. He accused the MLA of posting his nephews in key positions in the Joint Council, ignoring members from the Scheduled Caste communities. He wrote that the Kasaragod district Joint Council is full of members from the MLA's community.

"After becoming a minister, he re-surveyed 10 villages in Hosdurg taluk. But things went from bad to worse. These problems were solved only with the help of the best employees of the Department of Department," Pavithran wrote. If such people with no communist tradition are made ministers, it is the employees and the poor who suffer, he wrote.

When the MLA saw the post, he complained to the Collector. Though Pavithran apologised after withdrawing the post, the Collector noted that the Deputy Thasildar often put out offensive posts on social media targeting individuals and was warned not to do so.