J&K leader Shah Faesal quits politics, likely to join back administration

IAS officer-turned-politician Shah Faesal is likely to join back administration after stepping down as the president of the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement (JKPM).

Reports of his resignation from the JKPM started doing the rounds after he was recently released from detention.

However, the former IAS officer was conveyed by authorities that his resignation has not still been accepted, as per top sources.

Interestingly, despite Faesal submitting his resignation and forming a political party called the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Movement (JKPM), his name was not removed from the list of J&K cadre IAS officers on the official website of the government.

Faesal drops his political bio from Twitter

Faesal on Sunday lent credence to news reports that he is likely to join back by dropping his political bio from his Twitter handle.

His twitter bio said on Sunday evening, "Edward S Fellow @HKS Harvard University, Medico. Fulbright. Centrist." He obviously has chosen to drop his political bio as the founder of the JKPM.

He topped the 2010 civil services exam and was allotted his home cadre of the IAS.

Known as an honest and upright officer, Faesal's well-wishers had cautioned him in 2018, when he resigned to join politics, that politics might not be his cup of tea.

Sources here also said the government has recently "send him feelers that they are not averse to his joining back the civil service".

If he chooses to join back, Faesal would have created another record for the shortest political career in Jammu and Kashmir.

He founded the JKPM in early 2019 amid much fanfare and expectations of an alternative political platform for the youth of J&K.

Several political leaders were detained and Shah Faisal was also arrested from the Delhi airport. After spending close to a year in detention he was recently released.

(With agency inputs)