PM-led panel appoints Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Sandhu as election commissioners

Bureaucrats Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar have been elected as the next Election Commissioners of the country. The decision to make both the bureaucrats as Election Commissioners has been taken by the PM Modi led panel. Along with Home Minister Amit Shah, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhary was also in this panel. Let us tell you that Sukhbir Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar are retired IAS officers of 1988-batch. While Sandhu is from Uttarakhand cadre of IAS, Kumar is from Kerala cadre. Sandhu has previously held key government positions including Chief Secretary of Uttarakhand and Chairman of the National Highway Authority of India. Kumar has served as secretary in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Cooperation led by Amit Shah

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Choudhary has targeted the Center over the law to include a Union Minister in place of the Chief Justice in the selection committee. He said that the Chief Justice of India should have been in this committee. The law introduced last year has limited the meeting to a mere “formality”. Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary further said that the government is in majority in the panel which has decided the name of the Election Commissioner. In such a situation, whatever they want happens.

The Congress leader said that he was given 212 names for investigation last night. Adhir Ranjan Chaudhary said that I reached Delhi last night and the meeting was today in the afternoon. I was given 212 names, how can one check so many candidates in one day? Then, I was given 6 shortlisted names before the meeting. The majority is with them, so they have chosen only what they wanted to make.

After Arun Goyal's resignation from the post of Election Commissioner, opposition parties had targeted the government. Congress and Samajwadi Party had said that this development directly raises the question as to whose pressure is on a constitutional institution like the Election Commission? Congress asked whether Arun Goyal had taken this step due to any differences with the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) or the government?

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh had asked whether Goyal had resigned for personal reasons, as he mentioned in his resignation letter, or whether he would contest the Lok Sabha elections on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket like former Calcutta High Court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay. Has resigned to contest elections. Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, however, when asked about Goyal's resignation, had said that we will have to wait to see what he does in the coming days.