Months after former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Annamalai joined the Central ruling BJP, another Indian service officer in Tamil Nadu has now entered politics ahead of the state's assembly polls. According to reports, former IAS officer Santhosh Babu has on Tuesday officially joined Kamal Haasan's Makkal Needhi Maiam, which is the political party launched by the actor turned politician and is preparing for its first state legislative elections.

Santhosh Babu was the former IAS officer and he got retired voluntarily from public service in August this year. The 1995 batch IAS office of Tamil Nadu cadre, Santhosh Babu is one of the renowned public service officers in the state and he was highly regarded for his integrity. Three months after his retirement, he has now entered politics and joined Makkal Needhi Maiam on Tuesday. 

Kamal Haasan has officially welcomed the former IAS officer to the party and during the press conference, the actor turned politician said that the bureaucrat had considered his offer of joining the party for six months before he finally decided to join the party. The press conference held in Chennai was attended by some of the senior leaders. 

By welcoming the bureaucrat into the party, Kamal Haasan took the prospect of the press conference to speak about the national issues and the actor turned politician had urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to have a dialogue with the farmers on their demand. Addressing the reporters as the official member of the party, Santhosh Babu said that he was very keen on enhancing the internet connectivity in Tamil Nadu. 

He said that he had received an offer from the Prime Minister's Office to head the MyGov platform as its Chief Executive Officer. However, he had rejected the offer as he was interested in developing internet connectivity in Tamil Nadu through the Bharatnet project and other projects. He stated that he was strongly focusing on the blockchain backbone, Bharatnet, and predictive governance. 

By citing that he was also concentrating on introducing high-speed internet in every village, he stated that this was the reason why he declined the offer from the Center. He added that after the Bharatnet project had surfaced with many issues, he couldn't follow his dream and he couldn't able to go to the center following which he had applied VRS (Voluntary Retirement Scheme) in August 2020.  

Santhosh Babu has lastly served as the Principal Secretary to the government of Tamil Nadu in the Department of Information Technology during which the Tamil Nadu Fiber Net Corporation has floated the Bharatnet project worth Rs 2,000 crore. The reports say that the project mired in a heated controversy with the anti-corruption groups claiming irregularities in the tender allocation of the project. 

The anti-corruption group based in Chennai said that the tender for the Bharatnet project had favored a few companies and the state government was reportedly changing the protocols of tender in a way that many companies would find it difficult and impossible to apply. Following the allegations and issues around the project, the Central government had canceled the tender for the project and directed the state government to issue a new tender without any irregularities. 

As the issue around the tender arose when he was the principal secretary to the government, Santhosh Babu had decided to get retired from the public service and while he was addressing the reporters after joining the Makkal Needhi Maiam, the bureaucrat has revealed that he had applied for VRS due to the problems with the tender. According to reports, Santhosh Babu is yet to be awarded the post in the party and it is expected that he will be contesting in the state legislative elections. 

Makkal Needhi Maiam already has a former Indian Police officer in its party. AG Maurya is the retired IPS and he joined Kamal's party when it was launched. Maurya has been serving as one of the party's general secretaries and he also contested in the 2019 Lok Sabha Polls. Two months back, retired IPS officer Annamalai has joined the BJP and he was appointed as one of the vice-presidents of the Tamil Nadu BJP unit.