Gyanesh Kumar will oversee the conduct of the Bihar Assembly election later this year and the polls in Bengal, Assam, and Tamil Nadu next year. Mr Kumar, a 1988-batch IAS officer from Kerala cadre, is the senior of the two commissioners on the three-member panel that was led by Rajiv Kumar till he demitted office this morning. The other commissioner on the panel is Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, an officer from the Uttarakhand cadre. The opposition Congress – represented on the selection panel by Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha – objected to what it has said is a rush to name the new CEC. The party has pointed out the Supreme Court will this week hear a challenge to the 2023 law governing the selection of the CEC, which critics say gives the ruling BJP control of the process. Under that law a three- member panel – the Prime Minister, the Home Minister, and the LoP will decide.
