Who Is Gyanesh Kumar ? The Chief Election Commissioner At The Centre Of A Poll Panel Dispute

Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar has been at the centre of a dispute within the Election Commission after an Indian Express investigation reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi formally objected at least 14 times over the past 10 months to decisions they said were taken without their knowledge.

According to the report, the two commissioners also wrote to the Cabinet Secretary raising concerns about the functioning of the Commission.

Opposition parties, including the Congress, have alleged that Kumar used the poll panel to favour the ruling party. Kumar has rejected the allegation. He has not yet responded to the latest report.

Early Career And Govt Roles

Kumar, 62, was born in Agra in 1964. He studied B.Tech at IIT-Kanpur and completed a course in environmental economics at Harvard University. He is a 1988-batch IAS officer of the Kerala cadre and served in the state under both Left and Congress governments.

Kumar began his career in 1990 as Sub-Collector in Pathanamthitta, Kerala. He later held several positions in the state before becoming Resident Commissioner at Kerala House in Delhi in 2012.

In May 2016, Kumar was appointed Joint Secretary in the Kashmir Division of the Home Ministry under then Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

In 2019, after Amit Shah became Home Minister, Kumar was involved in drafting the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Bill. The legislation divided the erstwhile state into two Union Territories and abrogated Article 370.

Kumar was subsequently involved in constituting the Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, which oversaw the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

In 2020, Kumar was not included in the empanelment of 24 IAS officers of the 1988 batch for appointment as Secretaries.

He returned to a senior government position in February 2021, when he was appointed Secretary in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs. Shah later selected him as Secretary in the newly created Ministry of Cooperation.

His last government posting was as Cooperation Secretary under Amit Shah. Kumar retired from government service in January 2024.

From Bureaucrat To Election Commissioner

Less than two months after his retirement, Kumar was appointed an Election Commissioner. His appointment was announced on March 15, 2024, and he joined the poll panel along with Sukhbir Singh Sandhu.

As an election commissioner, Kumar was involved in the first Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370, as well as elections in Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Delhi.

As the senior-most officer on the panel, Kumar was expected to become Chief Election Commissioner. According to the Indian Express report, he began consultations with officials months before taking charge as CEC.

Kumar took charge as the 26th Chief Election Commissioner of India on February 19, 2025.

One of his first orders as CEC directed employees at Nirvachan Sadan to mark attendance through biometric machines. Officials also said heated discussions became common at meetings, unlike under his predecessor Rajiv Kumar.

SIR And Dispute Within Poll Panel

The Special Intensive Revision triggered political controversy, with Opposition parties alleging that voters were being added and deleted to benefit the BJP. The Election Commission called the allegations “misleading”, while Kumar challenged Rahul Gandhi to substantiate his “vote chori” allegation or apologise.

A former Jammu and Kashmir bureaucrat who worked with Kumar in the Home Ministry described him as personally involved in his work and said he remained cordial with colleagues, as per Indian Express.

Kumar’s two daughters are in government service, one an IAS officer and the other an IRS officer. Both are married to IAS officers.