By Our Correspondent
NEW DELHI/BHUBANESWAR: Rajiv Kumar on Sunday assumed charge as the 25th Chief Election Commissioner of India at Nirvachan Sadan, New Delhi in pursuance of the Ministry of Law & Justice, GOI’s gazette notification dated 12th May 2022.
Kumar took charge as the Election Commissioner of the Election Commission of India (ECI) on September 1, 2020. Prior to assuming charge in the Election Commission, Kumar had been the chairman of the Public Enterprises Selection Board. He joined as the PESB chairman in April 2020.
During his tenure as Election Commissioner, elections have been held for State Assemblies of Bihar in 2020, Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal amidst Covid concerns in March-April 2021 and also elections to Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh recently in early 2022.
After assuming charge as CEC, Shri Rajiv Kumar said that he is honoured to have been given the responsibility to lead one of the finest institutions gifted by the Indian Constitution – the institution that reinforces our democracy. He added that a lot has been done during the last seventy years by ECI to give our citizens free and fair elections, to ensure purity of the electoral rolls, prevent malpractices and enhance the quality of our elections.
“The Commission will follow the time-tested and democratic methods of consultations and consensus building in bringing about any major reforms responsible under the Constitution, ECI will not shy away from tough decisions”, he added. Kumar also said that Technology will further be made the major instrument for simplification of processes and practices for bringing about transparency and ease of voter services for better election management and operations.
