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Tamil Nadu has a long history of civil servants taking the political plunge. Over the decades, the people in the state have seen several Administrative, Police and Foreign services officers (IAS, IPS and IFS) joining political parties. However, not many have been able to stand firm in the political arena. While some have gone on to become elected representatives, many others have been pushed to remain low profile due to a variety of reasons. Here’s a list of former officers and their political fate:
Chandralekha is Tamil Nadu’s first woman district collector, who held various posts in the government of Tamil Nadu before resigning in 1992. She became the Tamil Nadu state president of the Janata Party, which then merged with the BJP in 2013. She is known to be a close aide of BJP leader Subramaniam Swamy.
Nataraj retired as the Director General of Police (DGP) of Tamil Nadu in 2011. In 2014, he joined the AIADMK and contested the 2016-Assembly polls in Tamil Nadu from Mylapore constituency and won. He is currently the serving MLA from the constituency. “Being in politics has given me a wider scope to serve the people. When I was in the police force, my work was restricted to a few aspects, but now I have a more comprehensive idea of the government’s working,” he says.
Adding that the satisfaction from the work he gets has been similar in both his stints, he says, “As an elected representative, I am able to satisfy the basic needs of the people. When they come to me with their grievance, I am able to get things done sooner since I know what might be the reason behind the grievance in relation to the government structure.”
Days after R Nataraj joined the AIADMK, another former DGP AX Alexander joined the party in 2014. Alexander was also the DGP of Tamil Nadu before R Nataraj. But unlike Natarajan, Alexander did not get a party nomination and has pretty much been quiet since he joined the party.
After he retired from service, Malaisamy also joined the AIADMK and was elected as an MP from Ramanthapuram parliamentary constituency in 1999. Upon completing his term in 2004, he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha from AIADMK. A close aide of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, he was expelled from the party in 2014 after he suggested she ally with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He then joined the BJP in April 2015.
Sivagami took Voluntary Retirement from Service (VRS) in 2008. She had served in various posts in the Union and state governments in her 28 years of service. She joined the Bahujan Samaj Party in 2009, just before the Lok Sabha polls, but quit the party and founded the Samuga Samathuva Padai (SSP) party in Tamil Nadu later that year with the vision to work for the empowerment of Dalits and women. She contested from the Perambalur (reserved) constituency under the DMK’s symbol in the 2016-Assembly polls, but lost to the AIADMK candidate.
Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) recently is seen as a viable platform for former civil servants to launch their political career. Retired IPS officer AG Mourya, who is currently the General secretary of MNM, joined the party in 2018 and contested the 2019-Lok Sabha polls from Chennai North. He lost to DMK’s Kalanidhi Veerasamy.
MNM’s state secretary R Rangarajan is another former IAS officer, who quit the services to become a politician. A 2005-batch IAS officer, he had served for a few years in Assam before quitting the services and joining MNM in 2018. He was the party’s candidate for the 2019-Lok Sabha polls and contested from the Chennai South constituency.
“The underlying factor is that all well-meaning people join civil services to serve the people. It is an authority vested in civil servants and they get to serve the population for 30-35 years irrespective of the governments in power,” Rangarajan says.
Adding that in a democracy, the ultimate power is in the hands of the people and their elected representatives, he says, “When people speak to civil servants, they perceive it as speaking to authority, but when they talk to politicians, they consider it as speaking to their representative. As a politician, one gets to interact with people without any problem, which is difficult when one is a civil servant.”
The latest in the line is K Annamalai, a former IPS officer who served as Superintendent of Police (SP) in Karnataka. He quit the services in May 2019 to devote more time in his native town of Karur, Tamil Nadu. While he had denied his political entry anytime soon in several media interviews between May 2019 and July 2020, speculations were rife about his allegiance towards Rajinikanth’s to-be-launched political outfit. A vocal admirer of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he formally joined the BJP in New Delhi on Tuesday, in the presence of a few senior party leaders.
While many bureaucrats quit the services to join politics, some remain in the services but their tough stance on issues fuel speculations about their impending political entry. U Sagayam is one such officer whose political entry has been a matter of speculation for years. Currently the Vice Chairman of the Science City Chennai, he is known for his stance against corruption and his investigative actions against several influential businessmen and politicians.