Ahead of the March 14 meeting of the selection committee to fill two vacancies in the Election Commission of India (ECI) — created by the sudden resignation of Arun Goel and superannuation of Anup Chandra Pandey — Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has written to the Law Ministry seeking details on the shortlisted candidates.
Mr. Chowdhury is a member of the high-level selection committee, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and including another Union Minister, which will choose the two new Election Commissioners (ECs).
“I would request you to make available the ‘dossier’ containing bio-datas of shortlisted candidates for the post of Election Commissioners before the meeting,” Mr. Chowdhury is learnt to have said in his letter to Legislative Department Secretary Rajiv Mani.
The selection committee will peruse the names on the shortlist prepared by a search committee, which is headed by Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal. The search panel, which also includes the Union Home Secretary and the Secretary of the Department of Personnel and Training, will shortlist five names for each vacancy.
With the dates for the Lok Sabha elections to be announced soon, the Congress has been targeting the government for reducing the ECI to a one-man body.
On March 13, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh alleged that the ECI’s independence has eroded since the Modi-led government came to power at the Centre. “The ECI has refused to meet INDIA parties on the issue of 100% VVPATs [Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails]. It is a Constitutional body but its independence has been severely eroded since 2014,” Mr. Ramesh said in a post on X (formely Twitter).
His comments followed reports that police in Jammu had detained National Panthers Party (NPP) chairman and former Minister Harsh Dev Singh along with several supporters for trying to stage a protest outside Jammu’s Nirvachan Bhawan against the “delay” in holding Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
A team of ECI officials, led by Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar, reached Jammu on Wednesday to review preparations for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in the Union Territory.
