Sushil Chandra appointed Election Commissioner

Sushil Chandra, chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has been appointed as Election Commissioner, ahead of Lok Sabha polls due this summer.

The Law Ministry issued a notification announcing his appointment and he is likely to assume his new charge on Friday.

Chandra, 61, who is due to retire in May, will have to resign from CBDT, before joining the poll panel.

An IIT graduate, he is a 1980 batch officer of the Indian Revenue Service (Income Tax cadre).

With his appointment, the EC now has Sunil Arora as the Chief Election Commissioner and Ashok Lavasa and Chandra as fellow commissioners.

Since Chandra has expertise in taxation and investigation, he could help the poll panel in election expenditure by political parties and candidates, a senior EC official felt.

Chandra is the second IRS officer appointed to the poll panel. Earlier, T S Krishnamurthy was the other IRS officer had served as election commissioner. He went on to become the chief election commissioner in 2004.

Chandra was appointed as CBDT chief in November, 2016 and has since been given two extensions.

When Om Prakah Rawat retired as chief election commissioner in November, 2018, Arora, then an election commissioner, took over as the chief of the poll panel. After Rawat's retirement, there was a vacancy in the election watchdog which has now been filled.

Chandra completed his B Tech from Roorkee University and LLB from Dehradun and joined Indian Revenue Service in 1980.