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Kerala IAS officer N Prashanth aka 'Collector Bro' suspended for calling senior bureaucrat 'psychopath'

by Trans World Features | @twfindia 12 Nov 2024, 10:16 am

Thiruvananthapuram/IBNS: Kerala IAS officer N Prashanth, who is famously known as 'Collector Bro', has been suspended on disciplinary grounds after he levelled serious allegations against a senior bureaucrat in public.

Prashanth, who has over 3 lakh Facebook and 50,000 Instagram followers, described Additional Chief Secretary A Jayathilak as a "psychopath."

He even accused Jayathilak of orchestrating baseless news reports against him.

Prashanth alleged that Jayathilak had ruined the lives of subordinates who did not follow his instructions.

His accusations came based on a media report that claimed several files of 'Unnathi', an initiative for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, went missing during Prashanth's tenure as its CEO.

The IAS officer not only rebuffed the allegations but accused Jayathilak of being a "special reporter" who was allegedly undermining him by planting fake news.

"This is a new experience for me. My criticism was aimed at certain individuals' inappropriate tendencies, particularly regarding fabricated reports. Evidence has also come to light regarding this. I trust that creating fake reports is not a government policy, but if criticising such actions leads to consequences, that's news to me," the IAS officer told a TV channel following his suspension.

Prashanth even called himself a "whistleblower" and claimed that being an IAS officer was not his sole ambition as he had other interests.

His social media activity had raised politicians' eyebrows in the past too but the bureaucrat has justified them citing it as the best platform to reach the people at large.

N Prashanth hails from Thalassery in Kerala's Kannur district and studied at Loyola School and Government Law College in Thiruvananthapuram.

He became an IAS in 2007 and after serving multiple roles, he was appointed Kozhikode district collector in 2015. It was during his stint here, Prashanth was described as 'Collector Bro' for his social media interactions with people and his unique initiatives.

One such initiative that grabbed attention was a Facebook message in which he asked people for help to clean a 14-acre lake and in return promised the volunteers a plate of Malabar biryani.

Several volunteers responded to the invitation and were rewarded with a biryani treat later.

He has also authored a book called Collector Bro: The quixotic 'thallals' of a civil servant, where he penned down his experience of leading the Kozhikode district administration.

Over the years, he rose to the post of Special Secretary in the SC/ST Development Department.