Shiv Sena activist and 1986 batch former IAS leaves Thackerays

FORMER IAS officer Avinash Dharmadhikari who joined Shiv Sena in March, 2009, quit the party on Monday. A 1986 batch IAS who became deputy secretary to Maharashtra chief minister in mid-1990s, left service in 1996 and unsuccessfully contested two elections as independent candidates. Then he began his innings as a Shiv Sena activist, but could not cope up with the party culture and got side-tracked. His takeaway now is that you can’t change the system while remaining in a political party.

Dharmadhikari’s book Aswastha Dashakachi Diary, (Diary of a Decade of Agony) became a hit as he narrated his decade-long association with the government as an IAS. Last year, he again hogged the limelight when he began to run an IAS-IPS training academy to help Maharashtrian youths with preparing the UPSC examinations. The institute, set up by Sena MLA Vinod Ghosalkar and inaugurated by Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray, is meant to produce more IAS officers from Maharashtra.

As an IAS, Dharmadhikari had served as additional collector, Pune and district collector, of Raigad (Alibag) besides being deputy secretary to Maharashtra chief minister.