Election Commissioner Veeravalli Sundaram Sampath, the retired AP cadre IAS official, has been named the next Chief Election Commissioner, replacing S.Y. Quraishi, who will demit office on June 10. Low-profile and of an intellectual bent, Mr Sampath, who will assume office on June 11, said in a phone interview, “I will work with more dedication and be sincere to the rules and the Constitution to the best of my ability.”
He told this correspondent had some ideas on how the Election Commission could be more accountable to the people, which he would reveal after assuming office. Mr Sampath, 62, was chosen Election Commissioner by virtue of seniority. In the famous 1995 judgement by the Supreme Court in the T.N. Seshan vs Union of India case, a point made was that when there was a vacancy for the CEC’s post, the next senior member of the Commission should be considered for elevation, a rule that has been followed by successive governments.
Mr Sampath has played a key role in the post-reforms period, especially in the power sector, both in AP and at the Centre as energy secretary. He was responsible for signing a record number of power purchase agreements with private developers during the regime of Chandrababu Naidu. He headed the power and finance departments in AP and worked as secretary, chemicals and power, in the Union government earlier.
Mr Sampath, a 1973 IAS AP cadre officer, will continue as CEC till January 2015 and helm the EC’s affairs for the next general elections in 2014. Another AP-cadre IAS official and Election Comm-issioner, Hari Shanker Brahma, will be the CEC after January 2015. As per the Supreme Court judgement, the EC should take all decisions by majority, which gives scope for the appointment of another Election Commissioner. It has now become a two-member Commission, whi-ch is legally permissible.
Even while Mr Sampath was being elevated as CEC, Union law minister Salman Khurshid took on senior BJP leader L.K. Advani, who demanded a collegium system to appoint Election Commissioners. He said that during the NDA regime, the then home minister must have appointed four to five ECs. “Has he reconsidered that the decision (to appoint ECs during his tenure) was not correct before writing to the Prime Minister,” he said.