Anup Chandra Pandey, 62, who was appointed as the new election commissioner on Tuesday, is a retired 1984 batch Uttar Pradesh cadre Indian Administrative Service officer. He has held positions at both the state and the Central levels over his nearly 35-year career. Pandey served as Uttar Pradesh’s chief secretary under chief minister Yogi Adityanath from July 2018 to August 2019. He was earlier the state’s industrial development commissioner.
Pandey’s appointment restores the Election Commission of India’s full strength ahead of elections in Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand, Punjab, and Uttar Pradesh due next year. An election commissioner’s post was vacant since April when former chief election commissioner Sunil Arora demitted office. Pandey will join Sushil Chandra, who succeeded Arora, and election commissioner Rajiv Kumar.
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Pandey, who served as a joint secretary for four years at the Centre, graduated from Chandigarh’s Punjab Engineering College. He holds a master’s degree in Materials Management from Panjab University (Chandigarh) and a doctorate in ancient history from Bihar’s Magadh University.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he played a key role “in introducing Abolition of Child Labour Act and ratification of ILO (Internation Labour Organisation) convention 138 & 182 on Child Labour” during his tenure at the Centre. It highlights his contribution to conducting the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, organising the Kumbh Mela and the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas during his stint as the top bureaucrat in the state. “The peaceful, transparent & incident-free conduct of Lok Sabha elections 2019, where tensions between various stakeholders were very high was certainly a very big achievement.”
{{/usCountry}}According to his LinkedIn profile, he played a key role “in introducing Abolition of Child Labour Act and ratification of ILO (Internation Labour Organisation) convention 138 & 182 on Child Labour” during his tenure at the Centre. It highlights his contribution to conducting the 2019 Lok Sabha polls in Uttar Pradesh, organising the Kumbh Mela and the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas during his stint as the top bureaucrat in the state. “The peaceful, transparent & incident-free conduct of Lok Sabha elections 2019, where tensions between various stakeholders were very high was certainly a very big achievement.”
{{/usCountry}}The career bureaucrat has also been a part of the National Green Tribunal.