More checks added on EC staff in eye of storm amid row over internal dissent allegations

The November 4 order places IT director general Seema Khanna under Pawan Kumar Sharma and assigns DEC Prakash Rajpurohit a supporting role in election planning.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has ordered a layer of supervision for a top official in charge of IT systems and shared key responsibilities of a senior deputy election commissioner with another officer, against the backdrop of a mounting controversy over allegations of internal dissent in the poll panel.

The Election Commission had told the Supreme Court that its controversial July 28 work-allocation order was never implemented after being recalled two days later. (PTI File)

The November 4 work order comes three months after a controversial July 28 order prompted two election commissioners to write to the cabinet secretary objecting to the changes. To be sure, ECI has told the Supreme Court that the July 28 order was never implemented because of a July 30 order recalling the changes.

ECI places IT director general under senior deputy election commissioner

According to the new order, director general of IT Seema Khanna will be supervised by senior deputy election commissioner Pawan Kumar Sharma. “She would put up files of above mentioned functional divisions through Sr DEC (PKS),” the order said, describing her responsibilities as IT/ICT and grievance/PGRS (public grievance redressal system).

Khanna is at the centre of a controversy over allegations that ECI centralised digital voter roll infrastructure and implemented restrictions in software to stop state officials from accessing voting lists.

Senior deputy election commissioner Maneesh Garg – who issued the controversial July 28 order – retains election planning but will be assisted by deputy election commissioner Prakash Rajpurohit, who also has charge of delimitation. “He will be supported by DEC (PR),” the order said.

As per the new order, besides IT and ICT, Pawan Kumar Sharma handles political parties, election expenditure policy, the observer division and coordination. He also oversees the North East-II, East-II and South-II zones. Khanna will put up files of her divisions through him.

ECI's new work order. (HT GFX)

Garg retains election planning and EVM responsibilities

Garg retains election planning, EVMs and Election Database Management Division, along with East-I (Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh) and North-III (Uttar Pradesh). Deputy election commissioner Bhanu Prakash Yeturu will look after administration, establishment, electoral rolls and RTI, and Rajpurohit will send election planning files through Garg.

“We can’t call this order a reversal of the July order because the previous order was never implemented,” a senior EC official told HT, adding that the new order was a unanimous decision by the poll panel.

The order assumed significance because it comes roughly three months after election commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi wrote nearly identical letters to cabinet secretary TV Somanathan in an unprecedented step on July 29. Sandhu’s letter was accompanied by the copy of an order issued by Garg on July 28 allocating work to himself and other EC officials, including Seema Khanna and deputy election commissioner Sanjay Kumar.

Commissioners raised concerns over file routing and lack of consultation

According to a Hindustan Times report dated October 3, the commissioners were concerned about Garg’s decision to change the routing of files of the IT department under Khanna. The files had earlier gone to Sanjay Kumar.

In their confidential letters to the cabinet secretary, the commissioners said Garg was given additional charge of the Administration Division on July 28, while DEC Bhanu Prakash Yeturu was on leave until August 9. Within hours, they said, he issued a work-allocation order covering officers senior and equivalent to him. The letters said the commissioners were not consulted on the decision. Both cited Sections 18(1) and 18(2) of the 2023 CEC/EC Act. Joshi added that a file he asked for from the Administration Division was not provided.

In the Supreme Court, an ECI affidavit said last month that the July 28 order was never implemented after another direction on July 30. The affidavit argued that the correspondence could not be treated as evidence that key special intensive revision decisions were taken without the concurrence of the other commissioners.

The work order and the letters are significant because Khanna and the IT department are at the heart of a controversy after an investigation by the Indian Express said that the new IT protocol/system put in place by Khanna and approved by ECI shut the database of electors (the rolls) from the very people responsible for adding or deleting names, Electoral Registration Officials (EROs).

ECI denies allegations of differences among election commissioners

The Indian Express investigation also reported that there were differences between the election commissioners, and that Joshi and Sandhu had disagreed several times with chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. ECI has denied this and said that all decisions were either unanimous or taken by a majority in keeping with the rules.

But the allegations have sparked sweeping street protests by activists, the Cockroach Janta Party and the parliamentary Opposition, mounting pressure on Gyanesh Kumar. Over the past two months, people have hit the streets, braving Metro closures, internet shutdown, prohibitory orders and 40,000 security personnel who turned the Capital into a virtual fortress and sparked controversy by detaining several agitators. While the Opposition is seeking the removal of Gyanesh Kumar and scrapping the controversial special intensive revision, the BJP blames them for trying to destabilise constitutional bodies to deflect attention from their own political and electoral failures.