Adhir seeks details on EC candidates
Ahead of Thursday’s meeting of the selection committee to fill two vacancies in the Election Commission, created by the sudden resignation of Arun Goel and superannuation of Anup Chandra Pandey, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has written to the Law Ministry seeking details on the shortlisted candidates.
Mr. Chowdhury is a member of the selection committee, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which will choose the two new Election Commissioners (ECs). A Union Minister is the third member of the panel.
“I would request you to make available the ‘dossier’ containing biodatas of shortlisted candidates for the post of Election Commissioners before the meeting,” Mr. Chowdhury is learnt to have said in his letter to Legislative Department Secretary Rajiv Mani.
The selection committee will peruse the names on the shortlist prepared by a search committee, which is headed by Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal. The search panel, which also includes the Union Home Secretary and the Secretary of the Department of Personnel and Training, will shortlist five names for each vacancy.
With the dates for the Lok Sabha election to be announced soon, the Congress has been targeting the government for reducing the EC to a oneman body.
On Wednesday, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh alleged that the EC’s independence had eroded since the Modiled government came to power at the Centre. “The EC has refused to meet INDIA parties on the issue of 100% VVPATs [Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails]. It is a Constitutional body but its independence has been severely eroded since 2014,” Mr. Ramesh said in a post on X.
His comments came following reports that the police in Jammu had detained National Panthers Party (NPP) chairman and former minister Harsh Dev Singh along with his several supporters for trying to stage a protest outside Nirvachan Bhawan in Jammu against the “delay” in holding Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir.