New Delhi: The three-member selection panel headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday (March 14) appointed two former Indian Administrative Service officers – Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu – as election commissioners. Before their appointment, the Election Commission had been down to just one member, chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar.
Kumar retired as Union secretary for cooperation, a ministry headed by Union home minister Amit Shah. Earlier, he was in the Union home ministry, where he handled the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the implementation of the Supreme Court’s Ayodhya verdict.
Sandhu was chief secretary of Uttarakhand till the end of January 2024. As the top bureaucrat in the state, he would have overseen the drafting of its controversial Uniform Civil Code, which was passed by the legislature a week after he retired.
Election commissioner Arun Goel had abruptly resigned from his position earlier this month, and the reasons for his resignation remain unknown. Another election commissioners, Anup Pandey, retired on February 15.
The only opposition member in the selection panel – Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury – said he expressed his dissent on Thursday’s appointments, questioning the process followed. He told reporters that the shortlist of candidates was not made available to him in advance, and that he was only given a list of 212 officers on Wednesday.
Under the terms of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, the government-dominated selection committee is empowered to fill vacant slots on the ECI from candidates short-listed by a search committee headed by the Union cabinet secretary.
The Act is under challenge in the Supreme Court for violating the apex court’s ruling last year that ECI members be selected by a panel that is not dominated by the government – so as to ensure the ECI’s independence.
These new appointments come at a time when questions have been raised about the independent functioning of the Election Commission, ahead of the crucial 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Apart from overseeing and ensuring free and fair voting in all 543 parliamentary constituencies, the three election commissioners are tasked with making sure all political parties and leaders stick to the letter and spirit of the election law, especially the Model Code of Conduct, which prohibits the misuse of government machinery by ruling parties as well as the use of appeals to religion and hate speech as a means of gathering votes.
The announcement also came on the same day when a high-level panel headed by former President Ram Nath Kovind submitted its report on simultaneous elections to the current president. The committee has recommended that elections to the Lok Sabha and state legislative assemblies should take place simultaneously. Following this, elections to municipalities and panchayats should be held within 100 days of Lok Sabha elections.