Withdraw order on employees use of social media: CPI (M) tells Govt

Srinagar: A day after Jammu and Kashmir government barred its employees from airing political views on social media, the state unit of CPI(M) Wednesday demanded withdrawal of the “authoritarian notification” to avoid “unrest in the ranks of its employees”.
The state government Tuesday this week barred its employees from using their social media accounts for any political activity by amending the conduct rules for them. “The order issued by the state government imposing extensive restrictions on the use of social media by its employees, exposes the dictatorial and regressive mindset of the PDP-BJP coalition government,” the CPI(M) said in a statement here. It further read that the order has “negative potential to alienate a substantial proportion of the masses”.
The government has added a sub-rule in the Jammu and Kashmir Government Employees Conduct rules which states that no government employee shall engage in any criminal, dishonest, immoral or notoriously disgraceful conduct on social media which may be prejudicial to the government. “They shall also not use their personal social media accounts for any political activity or endorse the posts or tweets or blogs of any political figure,” the rule states.
Terming the measure “highly undemocratic and arbitrary”, the CPI(M) urged the ruling government to withdraw the order at the earliest.
“The order is highly undemocratic and arbitrary. The government must reconsider its decision and withdraw this authoritarian measure in order to avoid unrest in the ranks of its employees,” the statement read.
The statement said it is rather unfortunate that the present government, contrary to working on withdrawing of draconian laws such as Armed Forces Special Powers Act, has decided to bring an order curbing the freedom of expression of its employees.