Former Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar to Take Over as Election Commissioner on Ashok Lavasa’s Exit

Ashok Lavasa had submitted his papers to President Ram Nath Kovind earlier this week, requesting to be relieved end of August.

New Delhi: Former Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar has been appointed as the Election Commissioner of India following the resignation of Ashok Lavasa who is set to join as the Vice President of Asian Development Bank (ADB), the law ministry made a late-night announcement on Friday.

Kumar will assume the office with effect from September 1.

A retired IAS officer of 1984 batch from the Jharkhand cadre, Kumar has over 30 years of experience in public policy and administration with a BSc and LLB degrees, and Masters in Public Policy and Sustainability.

He was appointed as the Finance Secretary in July last year where he was the senior-most bureaucrat among five departments at the Ministry of Finance. He played a crucial role in PM Modi’s plan towards job creation through flagship schemes like Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, Mudra loan scheme and others, as well as towards boosting credit access to farmers and small businesses under the MSME sector.

The 60-year-old former Finance Secretary was a key benefactor in initiating several of reforms in the banking sector against bad loans to make Public Sector Banks (PSBs) stronger. He spearheaded the Union Government’s mega-merger plan for banks that made Bank of Baroda’s union with Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank the third-largest PSB in the country.

Meanwhile, Lavasa still had more than two years of his term left and was to become India’s Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) after the retirement of incumbent CEC Sunil Arora in 2021.

Ashok Lavasa had submitted his papers to President Ram Nath Kovind earlier this week, requesting to be relieved end of August. Notably, ADB had already announced Lavasa’s appointment on July 15 in a press statement.

Lavasa will now replace outgoing vice-president Diwakar Gupta who completes his term on August 31.