Gyanesh Kumar was appointed the chief election commissioner on Monday hours after Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi submitted a dissent note at the selection meeting.

Gyanesh Kumar has been the election commissioner since March 2024 and his elevation as the poll panel’s chief will take effect on Wednesday.

Rajiv Kumar, the current chief election commissioner, will retire on Tuesday.

Gyanesh Kumar was the secretary of the parliamentary affairs ministry between 2021 and 2022, when he became the secretary of the cooperation ministry. His tenure as poll panel chief will conclude on January 26, 2029, PTI reported.

President Droupadi Murmu also appointed Haryana Chief Secretary Vivek Joshi as an election commissioner to fill the vacancy created in the three-member poll panel by Rajiv Kumar’s retirement. Joshi, an Indian Administrative Service officer, had taken up the post in Haryana in November.

Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, appointed to the poll panel alongside Gyanesh Kumar in March 2024, is the other election commissioner.

This came hours after the meeting of the selection committee where Gandhi asked the Union government to defer the appointments until the Supreme Court decides on the petitions challenging the selection process under the new law. The dissent note submitted by Gandhi was included in the proceedings of the meeting, The Indian Express reported quoting unidentified officials.

The Supreme Court is expected to hear the challenge to the appointment process on Wednesday.

After the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Elections Commissioners Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office Act was passed in December 2023, the appointment of election commissioners is done by the selection committee.

The committee consists of the prime minister (as the chairperson), the leader of the Opposition or the single-largest Opposition party in the Lok Sabha and a Union Cabinet minister nominated by the prime minister (in this case, Union Home Minister Amit Shah).

The composition of the panel means that the government enjoys a 2:1 majority over the leader of the Opposition, if there is a difference of opinion.

This arrangement was challenged by the Association for Democratic Reforms, an election watchdog, in the Supreme Court in March 2024.

The 2023 law to appoint election commissioners did away with an arrangement put in place by a Supreme Court judgement in March 2023 that had formed a selection committee consisting of the prime minister, the leader of the Opposition and the chief justice of India. The court had said at the time that this committee would remain operative till Parliament came up with a law for the appointment of election commissioners.

The Supreme Court-mandated selection committee had been formed to shield the Election Commission from executive influence. Before this judgement, appointments to the commission were made at the sole discretion of the Union government.

Rahul Gandhi shares dissent note

Hours after Kumar’s appointment, Gandhi stated on Tuesday that it was “disrespectful and discourteous for the prime minister and the home minister to have made a midnight decision” to select the new chief election commissioner.

In a social media post, he also shared the dissent note he submitted to the selection committee.

The leader of Opposition said that “by violating the Supreme Court order and removing the chief justice of India from the committee, the Modi government has exacerbated the concerns of hundreds of millions of voters over the integrity of our electoral process”.

“The Supreme Court judgement [from March 2023] reflected the larger concern among hundreds of millions of voters over the integrity of our electoral process,” wrote Gandhi. “This is also reflected in public surveys that show a continuing decline in trust of voters in India’s election process and its institutions.”

He said it was “unfortunate” that “soon after the Supreme Court order, the Government of India notified a legislation in August 2023 that bypassed the spirit and the letter of the Supreme Court’s order”.

Gandhi pointed out that the Union government’s legislation has been challenged by a public interest litigant. “The Supreme Court has indicated its intention to take up this matter on February 19, 2025, less than forty-eight hours away,” he wrote.

After the selections were notified, Congress leader KC Venugopal said that the government having held the meeting on Monday showed that it wanted to “circumvent the Supreme Court’s scrutiny and get the appointment done before a clear order kicks in”.

“Such egregious behaviour only confirms the doubts that many have expressed about how the ruling regime is destroying the electoral process and bending the rules for its benefit,” he said. “Be it fake voter lists, schedules favouring the BJP, or concerns around EVM hacking – the government and the CECs it appoints are subject to deep suspicion because of such incidents.”

Addressing a press conference soon after the selection committee met on Monday, Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi said that by removing the chief justice from the panel, the Union government had made it clear that it wants to “only control and not [preserve] the credibility” of the Election Commission.

Also read: Explainer: How Modi government’s new bill aims to wrest control of Election Commission appointments