Rahul Gandhi, who was part of the panel to pick the chief election commissioner, said the government’s hasty move was disrespectful and discourteous.
Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi described the Prime Minister and Home Minister’s “midnight decision” to appoint the new chief election commissioner (CEC) as “disrespectful” and “discourteous”. Posting his dissent note on X, Gandhi, who was a member of the three-member committee to select the next poll body head, criticized the Centre for excluding the Chief Justice of India from the panel against the Supreme Court order.
In his dissent note, the Congress MP said the hastily taken decision exacerbated the concerns of hundreds of millions of voters over the “integrity of our electoral process”.
“It is both disrespectful and discourteous for the Prime Minister and Home Minister to have made a midnight decision to select the new CEC when the very composition of the committee and the process is being challenged in the Supreme Court and is due to be heard in less than forty-eight hours,” Gandhi said.
Former IAS officer Gyanesh Kumar was appointed as the Chief Election Commissioner and Haryana Chief Secretary Dr Vivek Joshi as Election Commissioner by the President on Monday night.
The development came hours after the meeting of the Prime Minister-headed high-level committee, where Gandhi had objected to the appointment as the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear a petition on the selection process on Wednesday.
Gyanesh Kumar, who succeeded Rajiv Kumar, is now the first CEC to be appointed under an amended law that seeks to replace the Chief Justice of India on the selection panel with the Home Minister.
The move invited a broadside from Congress, which has accused the government of keenly wanting to “circumvent” the Supreme Court’s scrutiny and get the appointment done before the verdict.
“Such egregious behaviour only confirms the doubts that many have expressed about how the ruling regime is destroying the electoral process. Be it fake voter lists, or concerns around EVM hacking — the government and the CECs it appoints are subject to deep suspicion because of such incidents,” Venugopal said
