New Delhi:
Gyanesh Kumar – named as an Election Commissioner in March last year – has been appointed the next Chief Election Commissioner of India, replacing the outgoing Rajiv Kumar. Mr Kumar will oversee the conduct of the Bihar Assembly election later this year and the polls in Bengal, Assam, and Tamil Nadu next year.
Mr Kumar, a 1988-batch IAS officer from Kerala cadre, is the senior of the two commissioners on the three-member panel that was led by Rajiv Kumar till he demitted office this morning. The other commissioner on the panel is Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, an officer from the Uttarakhand cadre.
The opposition Congress – represented on the selection panel by Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha – objected to what it has said is a rush to name the new CEC.
READ | “Can’t Operate In Ego”: Congress On New Poll Body Chief Selection
The party has pointed out the Supreme Court will this week hear a challenge to the 2023 law governing the selection of the CEC, which critics say gives the ruling BJP control of the process; under that law a three-member panel – the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, and the LoP will decide.
Who Is Gyanesh Kumar?
Mr Kumar, 61, was earlier part of the Union Home Ministry.
Among his key responsibilities was helping to draft the bill that scrapped Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2019 and split the former state into two union territories.
He was then Joint Secretary (Kashmir Division) in the Home Ministry.
A year later, as Additional Secretary in the Home Ministry, Mr Kumar also handled documents relating to the Supreme Court case about the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh.
Sources said Mr Kumar is known to be close to Home Minister Amit Shah; he retired from the civil service in January last year as Secretary of the Ministry of Cooperation, which is also led by Mr Shah.
Prior to that he also served as Secretary in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs. And, in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, he was posted to the Defence Ministry.
Mr Kumar holds a B.Tech degree in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Engineering in Kanpur, and has also studied Business Finance from the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India. Additionally, he has also studied Environmental Economics from Harvard University.
Rajiv Kumar Retires
Exiting CEC Rajiv Kumar stepped down this morning.
In his farewell speech Mr Kumar touched on a number of issues, including remote voting mechanisms for NRIs and migrant workers, biometric authentication to cast votes, and non-disclosure of votes (to guard against post-poll violence) received by each candidate at any given polling station.
READ | Remote Voting For NRIs, AI, Biometrics: Outgoing Chief’s Wishlist
Mr Kumar also underlined the need for “financial transparency” in managing poll expenses and campaign promises and action against “fake narratives” spread via social media. He also spoke about Artificial Intelligence, or AI, which he declared could “revolutionise (the) conduct of elections”.
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