Overview

• At an AICC event on October 13, Kannan Gopinathan took Congress membership in New Delhi in the presence of K. C. Venugopal and Pawan Khera, with leaders including Kanhaiya Kumar and Jignesh Mevani attending.
• Gopinathan said he quit the civil service over the 2019 clampdown in Jammu and Kashmir after Article 370’s abrogation and reiterated his criticism of detentions and the communication blackout.
• He said he joined after traveling across roughly 80–90 districts and concluding that only the Congress could steer the country in the direction he supports.
• DoPT records accessed by The Indian Express still list him as a serving AGMUT-cadre officer, and rules bar government servants from political activity or contesting polls until resignation is accepted.
• No party post or electoral plan has been announced, and his record includes FIRs and disciplinary proceedings from 2020 after he declined an order to return to IAS duty during the pandemic.