Retired IAS Partha Sarathi is new Telangana state election commissioner

HYDERABAD: Retired IAS officer C Partha Sarathi was on Tuesday appointed Telangana state election commissioner (SEC). The state election body has remained headless after the retirement of the state’s first SEC V Nagi Reddy in April this year.
Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan issued a notification appointing the former bureaucrat as the SEC for three years from the date of assumption of office.
The new SEC will have his task cut out as he will oversee the elections to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation and Municipal Corporation of Khammam apart from elections to vacancies in several local bodies. Dubbaka bypolls are also likely to be held soon.
A 1993 batch IAS officer, Sarathi’s last posting was director general of Environment Protection Training and Research Institute and had retired on April 30 this year. He had served Telangana and the united AP governments in prominent positions, including principal secretary, agriculture and cooperation. While discharging his role as principal secretary, he also held the post of incharge VC of Telangana University, BR Ambedkar Open University and Konda Lakshman Telangana State Horticulture University.
An MSc (agriculture) in agronomy with distinction from the AP Agriculture University, he started his career as a revenue divisional officer in Vizianagaram between 1988 and 1991 and later worked as executive director from 1993 to 1996 and district revenue officer in Adilabad for three months in 1996.