The Election Commission on Saturday replaced Tamil Nadu’s home secretary Dheeraj Kumar with K. Manivasan, who currently heads the Hindu religious
and charitable endowments department.
This is the fifth major transfer of officials ordered by the EC in the state this week. The shuntings ahead of the April 23 Assembly polls have drawn the ire of the ruling DMK.
Other officials transferred and barred from poll duties include the chief secretary, the director-general of police (in-charge), DGP (Armed Police, and Vigilance and Anti-Corruption) and Chennai’s police commissioner.
The DMK had complained against IPS officer Sandeep Mittal, whom the EC had made DGP (Armed Police and Vigilance and Anti-Corruption), citing a pro-RSS social media post by him.
On Saturday, the poll panel modified its transfer order, retaining Mittal only as the DGP (Armed Police).
“I strongly condemn the Election Commission, which is fully active in the electoral field without taking to the field to directly campaign in support of the BJP…,” chief minister M.K. Stalin posted on X on Thursday.
He added: “Elections are happening in Assam, ruled by BJP. There, they did not replace the DGP or chief secretary. Elections took place in Bihar, where the BJP ally government was in power. There, too, they did not replace the DGP or chief secretary. Only in Tamil Nadu have the chief secretary and DGP caught the eye of the Election Commission. It has replaced them at the instigation of the BJP.
"It is unbecoming of the Election Commission to strive so eagerly to aid the electoral malpractices that the BJP, joining hands with AIADMK, plans to perpetrate in Tamil Nadu. The Commission’s officers may be there today; they may leave office tomorrow. But dragging the impartiality of the Election Commission... to the streets poses a grave danger to our country and to free and fair elections.”
Recalling how chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar had allegedly rebuffed Trinamool MPs earlier this week, Congress MP P. Chidambaram said on X: “A few years ago, the Supreme Court in a judgment cautioned against the ECI becoming an ‘imperium in imperio’. That was a prescient observation. The transfer of an upright, efficient and unbiased chief secretary in TN and the dismissive manner in which the ECI dealt with four MPs of the TMC seem to substantiate the apprehension of the Supreme Court."