The Kerala government on Monday night suspended two IAS officers for allegedly floating a WhatsApp group along religious lines and posting derogatory comments about a senior colleague on social media.

The chief secretary’s order mentioned that both of them tried to create division among civil service officers.

The suspension comes against the backdrop of a political controversy over the alleged clandestine meeting of a senior IPS officer with top RSS leaders. After months of dilly-dallying, the government transferred the officer.

The Opposition Congress, which had put the government on the mat over its “RSS links”, has been silent on the issue other than saying that IAS officers in Kerala were “embroiled in infighting under the Left regime”.

The Centre had in July lifted a 58-year-old ban on government employees taking part in RSS activities.

Industries and commerce director K. Gopalakrishnan has been suspended on the charge of forming a WhatsApp group called “Mallu Hindu officers”, which he deleted following protests from colleagues who were added to the group without their consent.

Gopalakrishnan had claimed that his phone was hacked by rival officers who belonged to a group called “Mallu Muslim Officers”.

The police probe found that his claims were false.

According to the suspension order, the government felt the WhatsApp group “on the lines of communal formations and alignments was intended to foment division, sow disunity and break the solidarity within the cadres of the All India Services in the state”.

The action against agricultural department special secretary N. Prasanth, popularly known as “Collector Bro” for his work during his posting in Kozhikode, comes in the wake of his “unfounded” allegations against additional chief secretary A. Jayathilak through multiple social media posts.

Prasanth’s suspension order said his comments “amount to grave indiscipline and that such remarks undermine the public image of the administrative machinery in the state”. It said the remarks were “unbecoming” of an IAS officer.

Prasanth had alleged that Jayathilak had destroyed the careers of several IAS officers for disobeying him. His allegation was corroborated by another senior officer in the state secretariat who commented on one of Prasanth’s Facebook posts. But no action was taken against her.

Kerala has about 157 IAS officers, most of them Hindus.