New Delhi, March 14 (UNI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led three-member panel has selected bureaucrats Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu for appointment as election commissioners, senior Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said here on Thursday.
It is expected that a formal order in this regard will be issued shortly.
Chowdhury, who is leader of opposition (LOP) in Lok Sabha, was part of the selection panel.
The recommendation for the appointment has come days after election commissioner Arun Goel resigned from the key post in a surprise move.
With Goel resigning, the poll panel was left only with Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar.
Both the bureaucrats chosen for the key posts are retired IAS officers of the 1988 batch. While Sandhu is from the Uttarakhand cadre, Gyanesh Kumar is from the Kerala cadre.
Disclosing the names of the officers chosen as election commissioners, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that he had been given 212 names for scrutiny only the previous night raising questions over the process of appointment.
"The government has upper hand in the selection committee for the appointment of election commissioners. They had given me 212 names last night. Today, ten minutes before the meeting, they gave me six names," said Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.
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