Weeks ahead of the 2019 general election, Sushil Chandra, a 1980-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) official has been appointed as the election commissioner. An IIT alumnus, Chandra, prior to his new assignment, was the chief of the central bureau of direct taxes CBDT, the apex policy making body of the Income Tax department.

Chandra will join the poll panel as the second election commissioner; currently former bureaucrat Sunil Arora is the chief election commissioner and Ashok Lavasa, also a former bureaucrat, is the election commissioner.

The commission is expected to announce the schedule for the general elections and a clutch of assembly elections over the course of the next few weeks.

Did You Know?

• The Election Commission of India is an autonomous constitutional authority responsible for administering election processes in India.
• The body administers elections to the Lok Sabha and state Legislative Assemblies in India, and the offices of the President and Vice President in the country.
• The Election Commission operates under the authority of Constitution per Article 324, and subsequently enacted Representation of the People Act.
• Being a constitutional authority, Election Commission is amongst the few institutions which function with both autonomy and freedom, along with the country’s higher judiciary, the Union Public Service Commission and the Comptroller and Auditor General of India.