SRINAGAR: Almost a year after he was appointed an Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar was elevated to Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on Monday.
Kumar’s appointment was announced hours after the Prime Minister-headed high-level panel met to select the new CEC to succeed Rajiv Kumar, who is set to retire on Tuesday. The meeting saw the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, asking the government to defer the appointment until the Supreme Court decides on the petitions challenging the new appointment process. The Supreme Court is to hear the matter on Wednesday.
Kumar was appointed to the EC on March 14, 2024, less than two months after he retired from the IAS. He assumed office on March 15 and the very next day, the Election Commission of India announced the schedule of the Lok Sabha elections.
In the past 11 months, Kumar has been a part of the Commission, with Rajiv Kumar and fellow EC Dr Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, while it conducted the Lok Sabha polls, the first Assembly elections in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, and the Assembly elections in Haryana, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, and Delhi. His tenure as CEC will last till January 26, 2029, which will see him helm the Commission as it conducts 20 Assembly elections, the elections for President and Vice-President in 2027, and prepares for the 2029 Lok Sabha elections.
A 1988-batch officer of the Kerala cadre, Kumar served as the Secretary of the Cooperation Ministry at the time of his retirement in January 2024. In his career, he served as Parliamentary Affairs Secretary, Joint Secretary and Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), and Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Defence. In Kerala, he worked across several departments, including Public Works Department and Finance. He was also the resident commissioner at Kerala House in Delhi from 2012 to 2016.
An Additional Secretary in MHA from 2018 to 2021, Kumar played a pivotal role when Article 370 was abrogated in 2019 and Jammu & Kashmir was split into the two Union Territories of Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir. The Narendra Modi government’s trust in Kumar as a bureaucrat is illustrated by the fact that he was not only given the responsibility of formulating the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill, one of the most secretive Bills ever brought by a government but also that he was involved in the setting up of the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust.
During his tenure as Cooperation Secretary, the Multi-State Cooperative Societies (MSCS) (Amendment) Act, 2023, was passed with the aim of increasing transparency and accountability in the cooperatives sector.
