THE FIRST Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) to be appointed after the contested law for selection of election commissioners came into force – removing the Chief Justice of India from the panel, and giving the government a majority – Gyanesh Kumar has notched up many firsts since. If the Opposition follows through on its warning, that list could include Kumar becoming the first CEC to face an impeachment motion.
While relations between the Election Commission (EC) and Opposition have been on the downslide since at least 2019, the heat on Kumar is over the EC’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, being held months to go for the Bihar polls. The EC has only had “intensive revisions” before, and never one that required essentially a citizenship proof from voters.
In the words of Kumar – who has ushered in striking administrative changes too – what Nirvachan Sadan is seeing is nothing short of “EC 2.0”.
Kerala to Kashmir to Ayodhya
One reason for the 61-year-old’s confidence, despite the challenge to the SIR in the Supreme Court and the Opposition’s attacks, is the trust he enjoys of the powers that be in the Modi government.
A 1988-batch Kerala-cadre IAS officer, whose profile on the EC website notes his B.Tech degree from IIT-Kanpur and a course in environmental economics from Harvard University, Kumar’s first posting was in 1990, as a Sub-Collector in Pathanamthitta, Kerala. He worked across departments in the state, before taking over as Resident Commissioner at Kerala House in Delhi in 2012.
Kumar’s bureaucratic journey really took off after he was transferred from that post and appointed, in May 2016, as Joint Secretary in the Kashmir Division of the Union Home Ministry, then headed by Rajnath Singh. It was the time of rising protests and a new spurt in militancy in the Valley, led by Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani. The PDP-BJP coalition was in power in the erstwhile state.
In 2019, after Shah took charge of the Home Ministry, Kumar was roped in for the drafting of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill – perhaps one of the most secretive Bills piloted by a government. It split J&K into two Union Territories and abrogated Article 370, one of the RSS-BJP’s oldest ideological projects.
Kumar’s handling of the post-abrogation tumult in Kashmir, including a security crackdown, further earned him the trust of Shah.
The government next handed him the responsibility of constituting the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which oversaw the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
In 2020, Kumar’s career faced a minor hiccup when the government left him out of the empanelment of 24 IAS officers of the 1988 batch as Secretaries. This got many tongues wagging as the Home Minister was part of the decision as a member of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister.
In February 2021, Kumar bounced back and, after empanelment, was posted as Secretary, Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs. Shah picked him later for the new Ministry of Cooperation under him.
A senior officer who has served in J&K said Kumar made an impression for his “hard work and intelligence”, but “more importantly, for his administrative wisdom”. “He always displayed a clear understanding that he needed to put his head down and implement orders from above. No unnecessary flamboyance or flair. That is why he was liked by the leadership.”
A bureaucrat from J&K who coordinated with Kumar in the Home Ministry said he stood out for his attention to detail. “He never left things for others, got personally involved… In the post-August 5, 2019, period, we also witnessed his ability to deliver under pressure. Yet, he was always cordial and warm towards colleagues. I have never seen him lose his cool,” the officer said.
Kumar’s daughters too are now in the civil services, with one of his daughters an IAS and the other an IRS officer. They are married to IAS officers.
Retirement and EC
Less than two months after he retired in January 2024, Kumar was picked as an election commissioner. His appointment was announced on March 15, 2024; the next day, the EC announced the schedule for the Lok Sabha elections.
In a busy poll year, Kumar as an election commissioner was also privy to the first Assembly elections in J&K after the abrogation of Article 370, as well as the crucial Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi state polls.
As the senior-most officer in the panel, Kumar was expected to take over as the CEC and, as per sources – in anticipation of this – he began his consultations with officials months before the takeover. When he finally became the CEC on February 19 this year, Kumar had had a short tenure of less than a year in the poll panel.
In role of CEC
One of Kumar’s first orders as CEC was a directive to all Nirvachan Sadan employees to mark their attendance strictly on biometric machines. This rule was hardly enforced earlier, and sources admit an uptick in punctuality at the EC headquarters now.
Officials, including current and former election commissioners, also talk of heated discussions at meetings not being uncommon now – a contrast to his predecessor, Rajiv Kumar. Six months in, Gyanesh Kumar’s tenure has seen the transfer of at least 10 state / Union Territory Chief Electoral Officers. Even accounting for Central deputation and “routine” transfers, that is an unusually high number.
With Bihar, Kumar is heading into his first major election as the CEC, having handled only bypolls so far and the vice-presidential election that is coming.
With the Opposition raising allegations regarding many of the vote processes related to the 2024 elections, Kumar and the other election commissioners have been meeting national and state parties, taking stock of their concerns. However, party leaders say, there is a shift in these meetings too. Now, only those leaders and MPs authorised by parties via emails sent to the EC are allowed in, with the Commission citing lack of space as the reason.
The EC has stepped up its game on social media platforms, taking on allegations be it from citizens to political leaders, dismissing them as “misleading” or attempting to “fact check” the same. Regular releases are issued by the panel detailing initiatives under Kumar, including one on August 19 that talked about 28 measures since he took over as the CEC, including the SIR in Bihar.
However, it is only this month, under SIR fire, that Kumar held his first press conference as the CEC. (While the EC usually holds press meetings around poll time, it is known to hold them to address controversies.) But if the press meeting held by Kumar signalled anything, it was that there would be no turning of the page as far as his relationship with the Opposition goes.
During a long interaction where he replied selectively to media questions, Kumar challenged Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi to substantiate his allegations of “vote chori”, or to “apologise to the nation”. There was no other way, Kumar declared.
For many, this was a man who had come very far from the days when his doors were always open and who would insist that his guests not leave without having kahwa – the Kashmiri drink offered in winters, as a gesture of warmth. “After coming to the Ministry of Cooperation, I realised that the best kahwa is actually available here,” he would say.