Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 10: Mystery continued to surround the sudden resignation of the election commissioner Arun Goel barely a week before the election schedule for the Lok Sabha polls is due to be announced later this week possibly throwing in disarray the entire process at least for the time being.
With already a vacancy existing in the three-member Election Commission of Indian after the retirement of Mr Anup Chandra Pandey at the expiry of his tenure last month, Mr Goel’s resignation has left only the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar as the sole member in the panel.
While Mr Goel has simply mentioned as “personal reasons” the cause behind his sudden decision to quit the panel where he was appointed only in November, 2022, the government’s initial claims that he resigned due to “health reasons” was rejected by the sources close to him who pointed out that Mr Goel was very much “in the pink of health” and it could not be any reason for quitting the post. The opposition parties have quickly seized on the opportunity and claimed that Mr Goel resigned because of “serious differences” with Mr Kumar over the “lack of transparency” in conducting the elections.
The insiders in the poll body have pointed out that apparent differences emerged between the CEC and Mr Goel during their West Bengal visit to oversee the preparations for the parliamentary elections. According to sources, Mr Goel refused to attend the press conference in Kolkata to brief the media about the preparations in West Bengal, which has the third largest number of parliamentary seats (42 seats) after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, after he reportedly differed with Mr Kumar who addressed the media alone on March 5.
In the press briefing, the CEC did mention that Mr Goel had returned to Delhi due to “health concerns.” However, sources close to Mr Goel have dismissed it. “He flew back to Delhi cutting short his visit in West Bengal owing to some serious differences,” the sources maintained.
The details of the differences and exactly on which issues they differed was not immediately known. Mr Goel had tenure till November 2027 and he would have become the CEC when Mr Kumar retires next year.
In Delhi Mr Goel had attended the Lok Sabha election related meetings with Mr Kumar at the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters on March 7. However on March 8, he reportedly skipped attending a meeting between ECI brass and Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla regarding the election preparations and instead sent his resignation to the President of India without informing the CEC.
“There were attempts from the government to dissuade him and reconcile their differences but he remained firm on his exit,” officials in the government said. His resignation was accepted by the President on Saturday and the Ministry of Law and Justice issued a gazette notification stating that Mr Goel’s resignation was accepted with effect from the same day.
“Except perhaps the CEC and other highest ranking officials in the government, nobody even within the ECI had an inkling about the abrupt decision of resignation of Mr Goel till the gazette notification was issued,” claimed sources.
Within the bureaucracy in Delhi, Mr Goel’s reputation is that of a “straight forward official who goes by the rules.” In a post on microblogging site X, a retired secretary in the government and Mr Goel’s batchmate Sanjeev Gupta compared his resignation as fast as his appointment in the poll body in November 2022.
“A resignation of #electioncommissioner as fast as the appointment of Arun Goel (on a single day November 18, 2022). Raises serious questions about independence of @ECISVEEP @SpokespersonECI. All of us batchmates are simply wonderstruck at what’s happening. No response from him,” Mr Gupta’s post on X said.
In the central administration before his appointment in the ECI, Mr Goel, a 1985-batch IAS officer of the Punjab cadre, had served as the Vice-Chairman of the Delhi Development Authority and as Secretary, Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Heavy Industries, both being seen as “non-mainstream positions or average positions” by the bureaucrats.
The government will now have to move fast to fill in the two vacancies in the three-member body. The Narendra Modi government had enacted a new law last year, altering the process of appointing the ECs and CEC as laid down by the Supreme Court, which had suggested a collegium consisting of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the Leader of the Opposition. Under the revised procedure adopted by the government in the new law, the Chief Justice of India was excluded from the selection process.
Under the new act, the appointment process for a new EC involves a search committee, led by the Law Minister and including two Union Secretaries, shortlisting five names. Subsequently, the shortlisted names are placed before a selection committee headed by the Prime Minister, and comprising a Union Cabinet Minister nominated by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, or the leader of the single-largest Opposition party, for final selection. The President then formally appoints the chosen CEC or EC based on the final selection by the Prime Minister-led committee.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge took to social media to question the implications of Mr Goel’s sudden departure. He asked whether the current state of affairs warranted renaming the Election Commission to “Election OMISSION.” “Election Commission or Election OMISSION? India now has only one Election Commissioner, even as Lok Sabha elections are to be announced in few days. Why?” he asked on X.
“As I have said earlier, if we do not stop the systematic decimation of our independent institutions, our democracy shall be usurped by dictatorship!” he added. “Since the new process of selecting the Election Commissioners have now effectively given all the power to the ruling party and the PM, why has the new Election Commissioner not appointed even after 23 days of the completion of latter’s tenure? Modi government must answer these questions and come out with a reasonable explanation,” the Congress president said.
Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal said, “This is quite shocking; just before the declaration of elections, the Election Commissioner has resigned. Now, only one Election Commissioner is there… What is happening in this Election Commission? The entire country is anxious. The government of India doesn’t want a free and fair election,” said Venugopal.
“It is deeply concerning for the health of the world’s largest democracy that Election Commissioner Mr Arun Goel has resigned on the cusp of the Lok Sabha elections,” he said. “Earlier, they removed the Chief Justice of India from the selection body of the Election Commission and Election Commissioner. In place of CJI, they included a cabinet minister… now it has become a government affair… transparency has been lost in this process,” he added.
In a post on X, he wrote, “During the 2019 elections, Mr Ashok Lavasa had dissented against a clean chit to the PM for violating the Model Code of Conduct. Later, he faced relentless inquiries. This attitude shows the regime is hellbent on destroying democratic traditions.”
Mr Venugopal expressed worry about the influence of the government on constitutional bodies, citing the example of Ashok Lavasa’s dissent during the 2019 elections and subsequent inquiries. Mr Lavasa had resigned citing dissent on various model code violation decisions during the last Lok Sabha polls.
Trinamool Congress leader Saket Gokhale expressed his concerns that now two appointments are to be made to the poll panel ahead of the general elections. “In a sudden move, Election Commissioner Arun Goel has abruptly resigned. The post of the other EC is vacant. That leaves the Election Commission now with just one Chief Election Commissioner,” he posted on X.
The TMC MP Mahua Moitra in a post on X, wrote, “Why does EC Arun Goel resign right after ECI’s poll review meeting in Kolkata where he left abruptly? Apparently disagreed with Delhi’s diktat on num of phases & excessive force deployment. Will now be replaced by a hand-picked, yes man.”
Srinivas BV, National President of Indian Youth Congress, wrote, “Just before the Lok Sabha elections: Country’s Election Commissioner Arun Goel Resignation, is it a common occurrence?? There is already a vacancy in the post of one Election Commissioner in the country, and now another post has also become vacant. Meaning, now Modi ji himself will decide who will be the next two ‘Anil Masih’ of the Election Commission!!”
Initially, the election commission comprised only a Chief Election Commissioner (CEC). However, it currently includes the CEC and two election commissioners.
Additional commissioners were first appointed on October 16, 1989, but they had a brief tenure until January 1, 1990. Meanwhile, on October 1, 1993, two additional election commissioners were appointed, establishing the concept of a multi-member EC, where decisions are made by a majority vote and the system has remained in force till date.