Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Feb 14: A selection committee headed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to meet early next week to finalise the name of the next chief election commissioner to fill in the vacancy to be created by the retirement of the incumbent CEC Rajiv Kumar, sources said on Friday.
The panel which also includes the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and an union minister to be named by the Prime Minister, in this case likely to be the law minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, could meet either on Sunday or Monday ahead of Mr Kumar’s retirement on February 18.
It will recommend a name from among the candidates shortlisted by a search committee. The president will then appoint the next CEC based on the recommendation. After Rajiv Kumar, Gyanesh Kumar is the senior-most election commissioner. His tenure is till January 26, 2029. Sukhbir Singh Sandhu is the other election commissioner.
Among the elections due in the next couple of years which the new CEC was expected to oversee is the polls in Bihar later this year and in Bengal and Tamil Nadu in 2026, and Assam and Kerala later. The process will start a day before the Supreme Court hears petitions against the new law governing selection of a CEC and ECs. Critics say the law gives the centre an edge in the processes.
So far, the senior-most election commissioner (EC) was elevated as CEC following the retirement of the incumbent. However, after a new law on appointments of the CEC and ECs came into force last year, a search committee shortlists names of five secretary-level officers for consideration by a prime minister-led panel for appointment to the posts. Besides the CEC, a new EC could also be appointed to fill the vacancy created by Rajiv Kumar’s retirement.
Mr Kumar was appointed as the CEC in May 2022. Since then he has overseen multiple high-profile electoral exercises, including the Lok Sabha election in April-June last year and Jammu and Kashmir’s first Assembly poll in over a decade.
He conducted the presidential elections in 2022 and in 2023 oversaw the Karnataka and Telangana polls, which the Congress won, and the Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan polls, which the BJP won. He concluded his tenure as the poll panel chief with last week’s Delhi election.
In January, while announcing the Delhi poll dates, Mr Kumar had quipped he plans to “detoxify” himself by spending several months in solitary confinement in the Himalayas after he retires. “I will detoxify myself for the next four-five months… go to the Himalayas, be away from the glare of (the media). I need some solitude…” he said. Mr Kumar, a 1984-batch IAS officer from the Bihar/Jharkhand cadre, also spoke about wanting to give back to teach underprivileged children.
Mr Kumar’s tenure as the Chief Election Commissioner was marked by multiple complaints, particularly from the Congress and, in the run-up to the Delhi election, the Aam Aadmi Party. The opposition had routinely alleged the EC favours the ruling BJP and also questioned the use of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) claiming it can be hacked.
The EC also came under fire over the release of data on voting day; during the Haryana election last year, for example, the Congress was very critical of delays in publishing live voting trends. The AAP boss Arvind Kejriwal had hit out last month, days before voting for the Delhi election, declaring the poll panel had “surrendered before the BJP.”
Mr Kejriwal – whose party was thumped, and who lost his seat in the Assembly – hinted darkly at a quid-pro-quo between Mr Kumar and the central government, a charge the CEC flatly denied. On Wednesday, Mr Kumar asserted that that the system of poll data is robust with in-built “red flags” which ensure that “nothing can go wrong”. He declared himself “very confident” that nothing could go wrong; “… even if someone makes an error, the system won’t accept it.”
On EVMs, he dismissed talk of manipulation or voter fraud, pointing out the machines had passed several tests of judicial scrutiny, including by the Supreme Court. “EVMs are not hackable. Every claim of manipulation has been thoroughly investigated and debunked. This technology has consistently upheld the principles of free and fair elections,” he said.
While provisions of the “Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023” are being applied for the first time to appoint a CEC, it was used to appoint ECs Gyanesh Kumar and Sandhu to fill the vacancies created by the retirement of Anup Chandra Pandey and the resignation of Arun Goel last year.
According to the law, the CEC and ECs will be appointed by the president on the recommendation of a selection committee headed by the prime minister and comprising the Lok Sabha opposition leader and a Union Cabinet minister to be nominated by the prime minister. The sources said the same set of candidates could also be used to appoint a new EC.
According to the law, the CEC and other ECs will be appointed from among persons who are holding or have held a post equivalent to the rank of secretary to the government of India and will be persons of integrity with knowledge of and experience in management and conduct of elections. In other words, serving and retired secretary-level officials can be appointed as the CEC and ECs.
