Meet Gyanesh Kumar, the new Election Commissioner picked by PM Modi-led panel ahead of Lok Sabha Polls

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led high-level committee has picked former bureaucrats Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu as the Election Commissioners, the leader of the Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury informed media on March 14. 

Chowdhury is one of the members of the PM-led panel. The two vacancies in the Election Commission were created after the retirement of Anup Chandra Pandey in February and the surprise resignation of Arun Goel recently, days ahead of Lok Sabha polls 2024.

One of the new Election Commissioners, Gyanesh Kumar is a 1988-batch IAS officer from the Kerala cadre. Kumar, 60, has worked with Union Home Minister Amit Shah before. He retired as secretary in the Ministry of Cooperation, which comes under Amit Shah, on January 31, 2024. Before that, he also served as the secretary in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs.

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Oversaw Article 370 abrogation

Among other significant postings, Kumar was posted as Joint Secretary Kashmir Division in Amit Shah-led Home Ministry when Article 370 was abrogated in August 2019

In 2020, Kumar, posted as additional secretary, headed a dedicated desk in the Home Ministry to look after all matters related to the Supreme Court verdict on the Ayodhya case, including the formation of the Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust.

The Supreme Court on November 9, 2019 ordered the setting up of a trust that would eventually pave the way for the construction of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya. At that time, Kumar headed the Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh (JKL) affairs in the Home Ministry. The Ayodhya cell under the Home Ministry was created in 1990.

During his tenure at the Ministry of Cooperation, Kumar had a role in enactment of the Multi-State Cooperative Societies (MSCS) (Amendment) Act, 2023.

Earlier, during the Congress-led UPA government, Kumar was posted as Joint Secretary (Defence Production) in the Ministry of Defence between 2007 and 2012. 

BTech from IIT, Kanpur  

Born on January 27, 1964, in Uttar Pradesh, Kumar is an engineering graduate from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur where he did a BTech in Civil Engineering. He has also done a PG in Economics from Harvard, USA besides studying CFA at the Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India (ICFAI).

Kumar’s father was a doctor and his grandfather was a freedom fighter and later a principal in Agra, Uttar Pradesh.