Former CEC, who ushered in reforms for third gender voters, passes away
Former Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Navin Chawla, who ushered in a key reform for third gender voters, passed away at the age of 79 on Saturday.
Condoling his demise, the Election Commission said Chawla led many reforms, including enabling third gender voters to exercise a preference to vote in a new category of ‘Other’, instead of being compelled to vote as ‘male’ or ‘female’. The EC recalled, in a statement, that Chawla as the 16th CEC advocated for constitutional reforms to bring on par the process of removal of election commissioners with that of the CEC. However, the system for removal of CEC and ECs has remained unchanged.
"His leadership and commitment to the electoral process will continue to inspire us at the EC,” read the statement.
Another former CEC, SY Quraishi, said he met Chawla around 10 days ago when the latter had informed him that he was getting admitted to hospital for a brain surgery. “He passed away this morning at Apollo Hospital,” said Quraishi, adding that he was cheerful when they last met.
Born on July 30, 1945, Chawla did his schooling from The Lawrence School, Sanawar, before moving to St Stephen's College here. Chawla was a 1969-batch IAS officer of the AGMUT cadre. He was assigned a number of responsibilities during his civil service career.
Chawla was the election commissioner between 2005 and 2009, and then CEC from April 2009 to July 2010. He had a controversial tenure in the poll body, with the then opposition, BJP, accusing him of being partisan.
In 2009, CEC N Gopalaswami recommended to the government to remove Chawla, who was an election commissioner at the time. The recommendation was based on a petition filed by the BJP which complained against Chawla’s “partisan” functioning.
In 2006, then LoP in the Lok Sabha, LK Advani, and 204 MPs submitted a petition to the then President APJ Abdul Kalam, seeking Chawla's removal as an election commissioner for alleged partisanship. The BJP also took the matter to the SC.
