Former bureaucrats Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar have been named as the new election commissioners by a panel led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The two posts fell vacant after the retirement of Anup Chandra Pandey in February and the surprise resignation of Arun Goel last week.
“In exercise of powers conferred by section 4 of the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023 (Act No. 49 of 2023), the President is pleased to appoint Shri Gyanesh Kumar, IAS(Retd.) and Dr. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, IAS(Retd.) as Election Commissioners in the Election Commission of India, with effect from the date they assume charge of their office,” said an official notification.
Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who is a member of the selection committee, said six names came up before the panel and the names of Sandhu and Kumar were finalised by a majority of members.
The two will join Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar on the commission.
Chowdhury said he had given his dissent note on the selection, raising questions over the procedure. He said he had sought the names of the shortlisted candidates for the posts in the Election Commission but was provided 212 names the night before the committee met. “Ten minutes before the appointment they again gave me just six names,” he said.
The six names shortlisted were that of Utpal Kumar Singh, Pradeep Kumar Tripathi, Gyanesh Kumar, Indevar Pandey, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Sudhir Kumar Gangadhar Rahate, all former bureaucrats.
Both Kumar and Sandhu are 1988-batch officers of the Indian Administrative Service and belonged to the Kerala and Uttarakhand cadres, respectively. Kumar retired as secretary of the cooperation ministry in February, while Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, was former Chief Secretary, Government of Uttarakhand.
During his tenure in the home ministry, Kumar oversaw the abrogation of the Article 370, which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. In 2014, as the resident commissioner of Kerala in Delhi, he was deputed by the state government to evacuate 46 nurses stuck in Erbil in war-torn Iraq. The operation was successful with the evacuation of 183 Indians, 70 from Kerala, from Iraq. Kumar, an IIT-Kanpur graduate, is a postgraduate in economics from the Harvard University.
Sandhu, a former chief secretary of Uttarakhand, is learnt to have overseen the ideation for the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code in the state. He is an MBBS from the Amritsar Medical College and also has a master's degree in history.
The first task before the new election commissioners will be to ensure the successful conduct of the Lok Sabha polls which are slated to be held in April-May this year.
With PTI inputs
