Former Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar appointed as Election Commissioner

The government on Friday appointed former finance secretary Rajiv Kumar as the new election commissioner to fill the vacancy created in the three-member-panel after Ashok Lavasa resigned to take over as the Vice President of the Asian Development Bank.

Kumar, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1984 batch, was appointed as the Finance Secretary in July 2019. He retired in February and was appointed as the Chairman of Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) in April.

President Ram Nath Kovind has now appointed him as the election commissioner, according to a notification issued by the Ministry of Law and Justice on Friday.

Kumar, 60, is likely to continue in the Election Commission for the next five years and may even take over as the Chief Election Commissioner in 2022 after the retirement of Sushil Chandra, who is likely to succeed Sunil Arora, as the head of the poll panel next year.

Lavasa was senior to Chandra and was next-in-line to take over as the CEC after the term of Arora would end in April 2021. He, however, resigned to join the Asian Development Bank. The President accepted his resignation “with effect from August 31, 2020”, read a gazette notification issued by the Ministry of Law and Justice on Tuesday.