IAS officer who quit job to protest Art 370 abrogation joins Congress

Former IAS officer Kannan Gopinathan, who resigned in 2019 to protest the government’s clampdown in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370, joined the Congress on Monday, describing the move as a “continuation of his fight to set the country back on the right path”.

Gopinathan, who had shot to prominence for giving up his service over what he termed an “assault on democratic freedoms”, formally entered the party in the presence of Congress general secretary (organisation) KC Venugopal and senior leader Pawan Khera.

Explaining the reasoning behind his decision, Gopinathan said he had spent the past few years travelling across nearly 90 districts and engaging with citizens and political leaders. Through those interactions, he said, it became clear that only the Congress had the intent and capacity to take the country in a direction that upheld constitutional values and democratic accountability.

Gopinathan recalled how his resignation in 2019 stemmed from disillusionment with the Centre’s handling of Jammu and Kashmir following the scrapping of Article 370. He said while any government may have the authority to alter constitutional provisions, the decision to impose a complete communication blackout, detain journalists and political leaders, and isolate an entire region was “a moral failure that demanded resistance”. “To jail elected leaders, silence the press and cut off an entire population from the rest of the country went against the spirit of democracy. That is why I chose to speak up then and I still stand by that choice,” he said.

Earlier, Khera said Gopinathan had taken a principled stand and raised his voice in 2019 against the arbitrary decisions of the Centre like converting the state of Jammu and Kashmir into a UT and taking other related steps without consulting the stakeholders.