Amid reports of an impending disciplinary action over his social media rants targeting Additional Chief Secretary A. Jayathilak (1991-batch IAS officer), IAS Prasanth N (2007 batch) continued his online campaign on Monday, though with more subtle and indirect references. Officer Prasanth, who serves as the Special Secretary for Agriculture, shared a post featuring a photo of an agricultural weeder machine developed by the state-owned PSU KAMCO.
In his post, Prasanth made an allusion to a popular Malayalam movie dialogue where the hero, identifying as a “farmer,” vows to eliminate the “weed” — a likely metaphor for his ongoing efforts to expose the alleged wrongdoings of his senior. While praising KAMCO’s weeder machine, Prasanth suggested that there was no need to worry about “weeds” harming farmland anymore, claiming that the “best weeder” had finally arrived.
This post appears to be part of an ongoing series of messages Prasanth has shared since Saturday, in which he has criticized Jayathilak for his alleged misconduct. Notably, Mr. Prasanth did not name anyone explicitly in his post on Monday, maintaining a degree of ambiguity. The two officers have been locked in a public feud, with Prasanth accusing senior IAS Jayathilak of ruining the careers of several honest IAS officers.
Prasanth has also positioned himself as a whistleblower, promising to expose the alleged wrongdoings of his senior and seeking protection under the Whistleblower Protection Act.
The rift between the officers came to light on Saturday when Prasanth took to Facebook to accuse Jayathilak of leaking a report to the media that falsely accused him of attendance fraud and neglecting his duties. On Sunday, Chief Secretary Sarada Muraleedharan (1990-batch IAS officer) submitted a report on the matter to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, and disciplinary action against Officer Prasanth is now expected to follow.
