Kochi, March 27 -- Kerala chief secretary Sarada Muraleedharan has called out discrimination she faced on the basis of colour and gender, as she condemned remarks comparing her tenure to that of her predecessor.

"Heard an interesting comment yesterday on my stewardship as chief secretary - that it is as black as my husband's was white," Muraleedharan said in a social media post on Tuesday in reference to a recent remark about her work being compared with that of her husband, V Venu. The 1990-batch IAS officer had immediately succeeded Venu as the chief secretary of Kerala in August 2024.

The chief secretary, in her post, questioned the comments made against her about her complexion and her gender. "It was about being labelled black (wit...