CHENNAI: Former IAS officer Santhosh Babu joined actor-turned-politician Kamal Haasan’s Makkal Needhi Maiam (MNM) in the presence of the party president and other functionaries on Tuesday. He is the fourth civil service officer in recent years to quit the service and join politics.
The others were IRS officer Saravanakumar and IPS officer K Annamalai, who joined the BJP, and IAS officer Sasikanth Senthil, who joined the Congress.
A 1995 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer, Santhosh Babu is an alumnus of Government Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram. He was serving as a principal secretary for the IT department when he quit on August 22 this year.
After joining the MNM, he was immediately appointed as a general secretary, headquarters of the party. He is the third ex-bureaucrat to serve the party after retired police officer AG Mourya and former IAS officer R Rengarajan.