Gyanesh Kumar Takes Charge as India's New Chief Election Commissioner

The Central government on Monday appointed Gyanesh Kumar as the new Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) in place of Rajiv Kumar.

Gyanesh Kumar, a 1988 Kerala cadre IAS officer, is the senior most member of the three-member Election Commission panel, which had former Rajiv Kumar as its head.

The panel includes Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu (Uttarakhand cadre IAS officer) and Vivek Joshi.

The selection committee meeting on Monday, which was convened to find a replacement for retiring chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar, who retires on February 18, finalised the appointment

The selection panel comprised of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, which was nominated by the Prime Minister.

This is the first appointment of a Chief Election Commissioner under the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which came into force in December 2023.

S.S. Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar were appointed as Election Commissioners in March 2024 on the same legal provision. They were appointed to fill vacant positions following the resignation of Arun Goel and retirement of Anup Chandra Pandey.

Rajiv Kumar initially took his place on the Election Commission as Election Commissioner on September 1, 2020; then as the 25th Chief Election Commissioner of India on May 15, 2022.

His 4.5-year tenure marked with revolutionary reforms e.g structural reforms, technology innovations, capacity building, communication policies, international collaborations, administrative reforms etc.

Kumar's tenure saw an entire electoral cycle with elections being held in 31 States and Union Territories, 2022 Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections, 2024 Lok Sabha elections and Rajya Sabha reiterations. This notwithstanding, the most critical takeaway is that these elections were peaceful in nature, with minimal cases of repolling and very limited incidence of violence — a definite achievement for electoral management.