New Delhi:
Former bureaucrat Gyanesh Kumar has been appointed Election Commissioner by a panel chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, who is also the panel’s member, announced the name today after a meeting.
Here are five points about Gyanesh Kumar
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Mr Kumar, a former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Kerala cadre, was a secretary in the Ministry of Cooperation under Home Minister Amit Shah. He retired in February.
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Mr Kumar was a part of the team that worked on scrapping special status to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution.
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He was also secretary in the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs. When he was with the Cooperation Ministry, the Centre had enforced the Multi-State Cooperative Societies (MSCS) (Amendment) Act, 2023, and set up three pan-India cooperative organisations.
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When the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was in power, Mr Kumar was the joint secretary of defence production in the Defence Ministry. He worked there from 2007 to 2012.
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Mr Kumar was instrumental in launching the website ‘CRCS-Sahara’ to take refund claim submissions by depositors of four multi-state cooperative societies of the Sahara Group.