New Delhi (19.02.2025): Newly appointed Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar (Retd IAS: 1988: KL) has taken charge of the office. The other commissioners included Sukhbir Singh Sandhu (Retd IAS: 1988: UK and Vivek Joshi (IAS: 1989: HY). Kumar has his tenure as CEC up to January 2029.
But the responsibility comes with challenge and the biggest challenge before Kumar is to deal with onslaught of the opposition political parties on ECI which claim to have lost faith in the institution right from Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) to the process followed to conducts polls.
Speaking to media the newly appointed CEC Gyanesh Kumar said, "First step for nation building is voting. Therefore, every citizen of India who has completed 18 years of age should become an elector and should always vote. In accordance with the Constitution of India, electoral laws, rules and instructions issued therein, the Election Commission of India was, is and will always be with the voters."
The procedure of the appointment of CEC and ECs are under the court scrutiny. So, the biggest challenge before ECI is integrity and it must restore trust and ensure transparency in upcoming elections. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge wrote a letter raising the issue of delay in releasing voter turnout data and Rahul Gandhi questioning the number voters in Maharashtra.
However, the outgoing CEC, Rajiv Kumar, on demitting office said that “losers” must not target ECI. He has a point — the commission’s institutional integrity has been repeatedly questioned, particularly by the Congress, after the latter’s electoral losses in the Haryana and Maharashtra assembly elections — but it must also be said the statutory body needs to do its bit to win back the trust of the Opposition and sceptics in civil society.
The ECI under the newly appointed CEC will be conducting elections in major states before 2029 General Elections. Elections in Bihar are likely to take place in October-November 2025; Assam, Kerala, West Bengal, Puducherry and Tamil Nadu in May 2026; Goa, Manipur and Punjab in March 2027; Uttar Pradesh in May 2027; Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh in December 2027; Meghalaya, Nagaland, Karnataka and Tripura in March 2028; Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan and Telangana December 2028. Rajya Sabha elections in almost every state will also be the responsibility of the ECI. So, the tenure of Gyanesh Kumar is going to be quite happening in view of all these elections.
