Capping off a four-and-a-half-year-tenure in the Election Commission (EC), nearly three years of those as Chief Election Commissioner (CEC), Rajiv Kumar will demit office on Tuesday after having conducted 31 Assembly elections and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
A retired 1984-batch IAS officer of the Bihar-Jharkhand cadre, Kumar joined the EC as Election Commissioner on September 1, 2020, filling the vacancy caused by the unexpected resignation of then Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa.
During the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Lavasa had differed with CEC Sunil Arora over giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then BJP president Amit Shah for alleged Model Code of Conduct (MCC) violations. Lavasa who was next in line to be the CEC and whose family members had come under the scanner of the Income Tax Department quit the poll panel in August 2020. He subsequently moved to the Asian Development Bank as its vice-president.
Kumar joined the poll body, with Sunil Arora as CEC and Sushil Chandra as his fellow EC, in the midst of the controversy and criticism of the poll panel’s role in 2019. Within days of his joining, the EC announced the Bihar Assembly elections to be held in October-November that year, the first elections to be held during the Covid-19 pandemic. With some restrictions on physical electioneering and enhanced spending limits for candidates to allow for virtual campaigning, the EC conducted the Bihar polls.
Rajiv Kumar took over as CEC on May 15, 2022, when Chandra, who had become CEC upon Arora’s retirement, demitted office. Soon after he became the CEC, the polling body conducted the elections for the President and Vice-President in 2022 and then began preparations for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. Kumar also presided over the delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly constituencies of Assam.
While conducting Assembly elections, Kumar focused on improving the transparency of the finances of political parties. Kumar, who had been Financial Services Secretary till retiring from service, found that many Registered Unrecognised Political Parties were potentially being used for money laundering and fraud as they were inactive but claiming the tax exemption given to parties. In the clean-up drive, the EC de-listed 284 such parties and declared 253 others as inactive.
In December 2022, the EC headed by Kumar, floated the concept of remote voting and invited political parties to see a demonstration of a prototype of a Remote Voting Machine. The idea, the poll panel said, was to use the RVMs in a single polling booth in locations outside the poll-going state so voters from that state could exercise their franchise. The move was meant to make it easier for migrant workers to vote for their home constituencies. The idea, however, never took off as political parties expressed concerns about the practicality and security of remote voting.
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Criticism from Opposition
Just as the EC was set to announce the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Election Commissioner Arun Goel abruptly resigned on March 9, 2024. Speculation about what led to this was rife. Goel still had over three years of his tenure left and would have succeeded Kumar as CEC this week. While Goel has not publicly spoken about his resignation, Kumar, when asked during the press conference where the the Lok Sabha poll dates were announced, said there was always dissent within the EC. However, Goel’s “personal reasons” to quit must be respected, he said. In October 2024, the government appointed Goel as the Indian ambassador to Croatia.
Kicking off the Lok Sabha elections, Kumar told political parties not to make personal attacks and improve the level of discourse during campaigning. During the campaign, the PM said at election rallies that the Congress would hand over the assets of women — gold and mangalsutras — to those who have more children, a reference to Muslims. He also said the Congress would take away their buffaloes if it wins. When several complaints about these speeches landed at its doorstep in April 2024, the EC decided to send a notice to BJP president J P Nadda. On the same day, it also sent a notice to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge for a speech by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The commission’s decision to issue notices to the party presidents for words spoken by their leaders was a first. This move saw widespread criticism of the poll panel and Kumar from the Opposition. By the time the Lok Sabha elections ended in June, the EC had issued 13 notices for MCC violations, six censures, and three temporary bans on campaigning. Of these, five notices were issued to the BJP and four to the Congress. The EC faced scrutiny during the elections over transparency measures, with Opposition parties and civil society groups hitting out over the delay in releasing voter turnout data.
Soon after the Lok Sabha elections, the EC conducted the much-delayed Jammu and Kashmir Assembly elections, followed by the Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra polls at the end of 2024. The Maharashtra elections and the Delhi Assembly elections that were held earlier this month have been plagued by complaints of manipulation of electoral rolls. The Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have raised concerns about the additions and deletions of electors. Speaking at an EC event last week, Kumar said he was confident of the databases and that “nothing can go wrong”.
Kumar is demitting office months before the Bihar Assembly elections are due to be held later this year.