Before the disclosure of election dates of Lok Sabha polls 2024, the leader of Congress Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury mentioned names of newly elected election commissioners in an interview after the meeting.

Bureaucrats Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar have been chosen for the two vacant posts in the top panel of Election Commission of India (ECI).

The decision comes days after the resignation of election commissioner Arun Goel ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

The selection panel, which zeroed in on Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Gyanesh Kumar, includes the Prime Minister, the leader of the Opposition, and a designated Union Cabinet minister.

Besides the PM and the Congress leader, union home minister Amit Shah attended the meeting. The Congress leader, however, hit out at the Centre over the law that replaced the Chief Justice of India by a union minister on the selection committee.

“The Chief Justice of India should have been on this committee,” he said. The Congress leader also said that the law brought last year had reduced the meeting to a mere “formality”.

“The government is in the majority on the panel. What they want happens,” said Chowdhury.

The Congress leader said he was given 212 names for scrutiny last night. “I reached Delhi last night and the meeting was today at noon. I was given 212 names, how can someone examine so many candidates in a day? Then, I was given six shortlisted names before the meeting. The majority is with them, so they chose the candidates they wanted,” he said.

(Source: IANS)

-Edited for style