Finance
The Central government on Monday announced the appointment of Gyanesh Kumar as the new Chief Election Commissioner (CEC). He will replace Rajiv Kumar. Gyanesh Kumar is a 1988-batch IAS officer from the Kerala cadre who is older than the other two commissioners on the three-member panel led by Rajiv Kumar.
The other commissioners on the panel are Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, an officer from the Uttarakhand cadre, and Vivek Joshi.
The government also announced Vivek Joshi’s appointment as Election Commissioner.
Joshi was the former Registrar General of India and Census Commissioner.
Earlier, a three-member selection committee led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi met on Monday to select the successor to outgoing Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar, who is slated to retire on February 18.
PM Modi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was nominated by the Prime Minister, all attended the selection committee meeting.
This is the first appointment of the Chief Election Commissioner under the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioner Act, 2023, which went into effect in December 2023.
S.S. Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar were appointed Election Commissioners under this provision in March 2024.
The two commissioners were appointed to replace vacancies caused by the resignation of Arun Goel and the retirement of Anup Chandra Pandey.
Meanwhile, Rajiv Kumar joined the ECI as Election Commissioner on September 1, 2020, and became India’s 25th Chief Election Commissioner on May 15, 2022.
During his 4.5-year term at the Commission, he implemented silent but profound reforms in a variety of areas, including structural, technological, capacity development, communication, international cooperation, and administration.
Kumar has completed one full electoral cycle during his tenure, which includes elections in 31 states/UTs, the Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections in 2022, Lok Sabha elections in 2024, and Rajya Sabha renewals – a rare and colossal performance in electoral management. The elections were handled peacefully, with near -zero repolls and incidents of violence.
Source: IANS
