Noted political observer and critic advocate A Jayasankar has trolled the Padma Awards in his latest Facebook post.

He has said that the Padma Awards are just to honour those who are close to the ruling party and this tradition was started by the first prime minister of India Jawaharlal Nehru in 1954.

He compared the recipients of the award to a Malayalam movie character ‘Pranchiyettan’ depicted by Mammootty in the movie ‘Pranchiyettan & the Saint’, who is a wealthy gold merchant who tries to secure a Padma Award by bribing officials.

He added that though this practice was stopped by Morarji Desai in 1977, it was reintroduced by Indira Gandhi in 1980.

Jayasankar noted that, in 1991, when Chandrasekhar was the prime minister, the Bharat Ratna was conferred to Morarji Desai. Desai was also honoured in 1990 by Pakistan by conferring on him the highest civil award given by the government of Pakistan, the Nishan-e-Pakistan, and incidentally he accepted both the awards.

He concluded his post by wishing all the “Pranchis” a happy Republic Day.