Just a few days before the announcement of the general elections, election commissioner Arun Goel resigned. Ashok Lavasa, who was appointed an EC in 2018, gave several dissenting notes on the issue of PM Modi and Amit Shah’s alleged infringement of the campaigning rules in the 2019 election. He resigned in August 2020.
By S.N. Sahu
The resignation of election commissioner (EC) Arun Goel on March 9, just a few days before the announcement of the general elections, is unprecedented in the history of our republic. His tenure was to end in 2027 and he would have taken over as chief election commissioner (CEC) in due course.
According to unattributed reports, he resigned (or was prevailed upon to quit) because of serious differences with Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar.
Ashok Lavasa’s resignation
In 2018, Ashok Lavasa was appointed an EC. He gave several dissenting notes on the issue of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah’s alleged infringement of the campaigning rules the 2019 election. He resigned in August 2020 and went on to join the Asian Development Bank as vice president, a position normally filled with government backing.
Divya Trivedi’s article, “Ashok Lavasa: Targeting a dissenter” published in Frontline on October 10, 2019, noted with anguish that Lavasa, who was the sole EC who did not agree to give a clean chit to Modi and Shah for their acts of commission and omission during the election campaign, “seemed to be paying the price for his dissent”.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
