Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson jumps the gun in APJ Abdul Kalam’s name

Chennai: Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson has landed in a soup for a Facebook post announcing this Sunday as a working day for government offices and educational institutions as a mark of respect for Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.

Surprised over the chief secretary's announcement, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy himself was learnt to have directed him to withdraw the post as the government had not taken any such decision. But even then Mr. Thomson did not withdraw it. He made another post that an update would come soon. He even justified that there were discussions on making Sunday a working day.

The social media announcement by the topmost bureaucrat in the state raised many an eyebrow as the government had even prescribed restrictions on social media use by government officials on earlier occasions following misuse.

It was by around 6 am on Wednesday Mr. Thomson posted on the official Facebook account of Chief Secretary GoK, "As a mark of respect to Shri @APJAbdulKalam, Sunday will be a working day for all ??Kerala govt offices and educational institutions."

Within minutes, the message was shared and liked by many. By 11 am, he put out another post, apparently from his Twitter handle, "Pls wait for an updated decision on my earlier tweet." This was said to be following the direction of the chief minister to withdraw it.

Mr. Thomson told DC that there were some initial discussions on Monday night on making Sunday working day as a mark of respect to Mr. Kalam who had suggested that instead of giving a holiday on his death, one should work an extra day.

"Yesterday I was in Chennai and this morning, I noticed certain messages in social media hailing the decisions of some government agencies to work on Sunday. Hence I got a wrong impression that the government already took a decision in this regard on Tuesday and hence posted the message in good faith," he said expressing hope that a decision in this regard would be taken by the government soon.