Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar has been in the spotlight after the abrupt resignation of Election Commissioner Arun Goel, who was scheduled to succeed Mr. Kumar next year as CEC. After the sudden resignation on March 9, it emerged that “apparent differences” between the two led to Mr. Goel quitting the coveted position in the three-member panel.
Sources maintained that both were not on the same page on important political issues and their differences escalated after the exit of Anup Chandra Pandey, the third member in the poll panel whose tenure ended in February.
Both Mr. Kumar and Mr. Pandey belong to the 1984 batch of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), from the Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh cadre, respectively, while Mr. Goel was from the Punjab cadre (1985).
