Days after receiving her first posting as the Sub Divisional Magistrate or SDM in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara, IAS topper Tina Dabi Khan has opened up to Janta ka Reporter about the challenges that her new role has entailed.
Speaking exclusively to Janta Ka Reporter, the affable civil servant said that although she had been posted as the SDM before during her IAS training, this was her full-fledged appointment.
She said, “The experience of working as an SDM has been brilliant. The feeling of working amongst the common people is great. It gives me immense satisfaction when I am able to solve people’s problems. My top priority right now is to bring as many people to polling booths as possible for the upcoming assembly elections.”
Last week, Tina had posted photos of carrying out SVEEP activities in Bhilwara, where assembly elections will take place on 7 December. SVEEP is a special initiative of the Election Commission to enhance voters’ participation in elections.
Talking about the SVEEP programme, Tina said, “This is not a new programme undertaken by me. As per the directions from the Election Commission, we are running this programme in Bhilwara to increase voters’ participation for the upcoming assembly polls. Every district official should raise such awareness. I will also try my best to ensure that most voters in Bhilwara cast their votes in this year’s elections. Having said that I am not doing anything great that should be covered by journalists as a news item.”
Tina had topped the IAS exam in 2016. Her incredible success catapulted her to instant stardom given her background both as a woman and hailing from the SC/ST community. Tina later fell in love with Athar Aamir Khan, fellow IAS topper and the all India 2nd rank holder the same year, before tying the knot with him earlier this year.
Tina had also come under criticism from a section of people, who desperately sought to undermine her success alleging that her performance in the IAS exams was due to the reservation she enjoyed as an SC/ST candidate. Although she has never spoken about these allegations publicly, she bared her heart out in a TEDx talk at Delhi’s Hansraj College in September this year.
An emotional Tina, whose Instagram profile now describes her as Kashmiri bahu (daughter-in-law), had said, “I think I am probably the only topper of this prestigious examination, who was made to feel so bad about her success. And I think, that time, I realised for the first time how brutal, how non-forgiving, how non-understanding the Indian society can be. How one individual can be targeted and attacked for the entire system and structures that the Indian society lives in, survives in. And how easy it is for people to sit back comfortably in their homes and abuse somebody on the internet.”