Sushil Chandra takes charge as new CEC

SUSHIL CHANDRA assumed charge as the new Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on Tuesday and will oversee the remaining four phases of Assembly elections in West Bengal.

Chandra succeeds Sunil Arora, who demitted office on Monday. A press statement issued by the Election Commission (EC) credited Chandra with making EC’s election expenditure monitoring more stringent.

“He has constantly emphasized the concept of inducement-free elections and it has become an important aspect of monitoring the electoral process in all ongoing and forthcoming elections,” the release said.

It also said that Chandra activated the role of many more enforcement agencies in the process of election expenditure monitoring.

He is the second Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer to head the poll panel. S Krishnamurthy, who oversaw the 2004 Lok Sabha elections’ conduct as the 13th CEC, was the first IRS officer to be appointed to the position.

Chandra was appointed as an Election Commissioner on February 14, 2019, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. He would demit office on May 14, 2022. Under him, the Election Commission will hold Assembly polls in Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

An IIT graduate and a 1980 batch IRS officer, Chandra was appointed chairperson of CBDT in November 2016. Chandra has worked in areas related to international taxation and investigation. He has been Commissioner of Income Tax (Appeals) International Taxation in Delhi. He was Director of Investigation, Mumbai and Director General Investigation, Gujarat.