Minutes after Kashmiri IAS officer Shah Faesal stepped down from the government service on Wednesday citing "unabated killings" in the valley and lack of sincere reach-out from the Union government, National Conference (NC) vice-president and former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Omar Abdullah welcomed him to the fold of politics calling it a "loss to bureaucracy and gain to politics".
"The bureaucracy's loss is politics' gain. Welcome to the fold," tweeted Omar Abdullah.
Following Abdullah's tweet, speculation started doing rounds that Faesal might join the NC.
To quench the curiosity, the social media friendly leader Abdullah once again tweeted clarifying, "Actually I welcomed him to the fold of politicians. His future political plans are his to announce".
Faesal, who joined the service in 2010, announced his resignation in his Facebook post on Wednesday saying he will share his future plans on Friday.
"The Modi govt's hate-ridden politics has trickled into the bureaucracy and left a sour taste in their mouths. IAS topper Shah Faesal quit his position citing growing hatred, marginalisation of Muslims and unabated killings in Kashmir," Congress said on Twitter while responding to his resignation on Thursday.
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Meanwhile, Congress leader P Chidambaram also took to Twitter and said: "Though sad, I salute Mr @shahfaesal IAS (now resigned). Every word of his statement is true and is an indictment of the BJP government. The world will take note of his cry of anguish and defiance".
The 35-year-old alleged "insidious attacks on the special identity of the Jammu and Kashmir and growing culture of intolerance and hate in the mainland India in the name of hypernationalism."
In his post, Faesal said he decided to resign from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) "To protest against the unabated killings in Kashmir, and lack of any sincere reach-out from the Union Government; the marginalization and invisibilization of around 200 million Indian Muslims at the hands of Hindutva forces reducing them to second-class citizens".