PM-led panel appoints Sukhbir Sandhu from Punjab, Gyanesh Kumar from Kerala as election commissioners

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 14 

Retired bureaucrats Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar were on Thursday named as the new election commissioners by a panel chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The panel, which consists of Leader of Opposition Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal, shortlisted the two officials from a list of six probables.

“In this committee, government has the majority ... one Mr Kumar from Kerala and one Mr B. Sandhu from Punjab have been selected as Election Commissioners,” Chowdhury was quoted as saying by agencies.

The Congress leader said he had given a dissent note, questioning the selection procedure.

Both Sandhu and Kumar are retired IAS officers of the 1988 batch. While Sandhu is from the Uttarakhand cadre, Kumar is a Kerala cadre officer.

Sandhu has held key government positions, including that of the Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand and Chairman of the National Highways Authority of India. 

Kumar has served as Secretary in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and the Amit Shah-led Ministry of Cooperation.

Gyanesh Kumar, in fact, played a key role in setting up the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teertha Kshetra Trust when he was posted at the Union Home Ministry.

Kumar also headed the J-K Desk at the Home Ministry in 2019 when Article 370 was made ineffective. 

He had retired as Secretary in the Ministry of Cooperation under the ministership of Shah.

The selection of both the Election Commissioners has come just days before the announcement of the Lok Sabha election.

The new ECs will assist Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar. 

The poll panel had been functioning with just Kumar at the helm for the last few days, after Anup Chandra Pandey retired on February 15 and Arun Goel resigned as Election Commissioner last weekend.

Meanwhile, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who was part of the panel chaired by Modi to select the two Election Commissioners, criticised the Centre over the law that replaced the Chief Justice of India by a Union Minister on the selection committee.

“The Chief Justice of India should have been on this committee,” he said, adding that the law brought last year had reduced the meeting to a “formality”. “The government is in the majority on the panel. What they want happens,” he told reporters after the meeting.

The Congress leader said he was given 212 names for scrutiny last night, and as he had reached Delhi only on Wednesday night, with the meeting scheduled for Thursday afternoon, it was not humanly possible for him to scrutinise all the names.

“Ten minutes before the meeting, I was given a shortlist of six names. It was fait accompli that the chosen two will be selected. However, I tried to intervene in an appropriate manner so as to bolster the institution. That’s why, before my arrival in Delhi, I sought a shortlist. They gave me a list of all candidates, numbering 212. Now, you can imagine if it is humanly possible for me to examine 212 names and find out the most competent person among them,” he said.

Chowdhury also referred to Arun Goel’s resignation as Election Commissioner, which has sparked a row. 

“When Goel was appointed, the Supreme Court had made a ‘lightning speed’ remark. He came with a lightning speed and left with digital speed,” he said.

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