NEW DELHI: Sushil Chandra was on Monday appointed as the new chief election commissioner of India, succeeding Sunil Arora who demitted office after completing a long innings as election commissioner and then as CEC. Chandra, a former IRS officer, had retired as the chairman of Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) before being appointed as election commissioner in February 2019.
He takes over as CEC as per convention of the senior-most election commissioner heading the poll panel. Chandra’s tenure as CEC starts half-way through the crucial assembly elections in West Bengal.
He will be overseeing the remaining four phases, and his experience as election commissioner through several assembly polls as well as 2019 Lok Sabha polls will ensure that the transition is smooth. In any case, as the election commissioner, he has been part of every decision and move of the Commission to ensure free, fair and violence-free elections in the five poll-going states/UTs including West Bengal.
It was not clear if the EC will remain a two-member body for now or a new election commissioner will be appointed immediately, restoring the poll panel to its full strength. There have been precedents of the post of election commissioner remaining vacant for some time, as there is no Constitutional requirement for EC having three members at all times.
Chandra would have retired as election commissioner in May 2022, but the exit of the election commissioner senior to him, Ashok Lavasa, last year to join Asian Development Bank made him the next senior-most election commissioner after Arora.
Chandra's tenure as CEC will last little less than a year, during which he shall oversee the conduct of polls in five states - Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand and Manipur. Chandra, during his 38-year career as an IRS officer, earned a rich and varied experience in various areas of taxation, having held sensitive posts in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi.
During his tenure as Chairman, CBDT, he led from the front in the unearthing of illegal money used during the assembly elections in several states. Born on May 15, 1957, Chandra did his B-Tech from Roorkee University and also holds a degree in LLB from DAV College, Dehradun. Before joining IRS, he was in the Indian Engineering Service.