The Dakshina Kannada unit of the BJP, where he last served as Deputy Commissioner, demanded a probe into his “affiliations”

The BJP launched a no-holds-barred attack on S. Sasikanth Senthil who resigned from the Indian Administrative Services (IAS) three days ago saying “it is unethical to continue as a civil servant in the government when the fundamental building blocks of our diverse democracy are being compromised in an unprecedented manner”.

The Dakshina Kannada unit of the BJP, where he last served as Deputy Commissioner, demanded a probe into his “affiliations” on Monday. He has also been the target of trolling by right-wing handles online.

B.L. Santosh, national secretary (organisation), BJP, led the attack on the officer on Twitter, to be joined by former Union Minister Anantkumar Hegde. “Three IAS officers resign from their positions just because of a thought process, other than that they were infected with moves in the country with full mandate. Imagine the intolerance of left-liberal ecosystem with whom they had cosy relationship. Nation understands you perfectly,” Mr. Santosh tweeted.

In a series of tweets, Mr. Hegde, MP, Uttara Kannada, called him “paid Gaddar” and asked him “to migrate to Pakistan”. “The first thing he must do is to migrate to Pakistan with people who support his stand. It is the most practical and final solution. It’s better he goes there and fight our country and government, than divide it being here,” he tweeted. He also opposed the Chief Secretary’s move to ask Mr. Senthil to reconsider his decision and said “he must have been sacked after he opened his polluted mindset”.

Puttur MLA Sanjeeva Matandoor, president of Dakshina Kannada BJP, said: “It’s clear that Mr. Senthil had left-oriented ideology. An enquiry should be conducted into whether he had links with any organisations while in service”. Asked whether it was wrong to have “left-oriented ideology” in a democracy, he said officials should be neutral without having “politically-motivated ideology”.

Speaking to a section of the media after his resignation, Mr. Senthil had said that “there was a fascist onslaught” and his decision to quit “reached a crescendo with the reading down of Article 370”. “I strongly feel the coming days will present extremely difficult challenges to the basic fabric of our nation,” he had said. When contacted, Mr. Senthil said he did not wish to respond to the attacks by the BJP.

However, other retired bureaucrats have come out in his support. Renuka Viswanathan, who is associated with the Aam Aadmi Party post retirement, said she admired the courage of the two officers who resigned — Kannan Gopinathan and Mr. Senthil. “They have clearly had a crisis of conscience with the present political climate. While in service, they are governed by service rules which bars any criticism of the government. So they have done the most honourable thing of walking out and voicing their opinion. But I am not surprised by the opposition from the BJP using their routine name-calling,” she said.