New Delhi, Feb. 21: Pati, patni and a post.

A husband and wife are in the race for the country’s top administrative job, which falls vacant four months from now.

Commerce secretary G.K. Pillai and his wife, labour secretary Sudha Pillai, both want to succeed cabinet secretary K.M. Chandrasekhar, who retires in June.

Another couple, Nirupama and Sudhakar Rao, are also in line for key government jobs but are not rivals for the same post.

Sudhakar Rao, now Karnataka chief secretary, is tipped to be appointed as the third election commissioner in the three-member Election Commission after Navin Chawla takes over as chief election commissioner from N. Gopalaswami, who retires in April.

The Centre has cleared the air on the appointment of the next chief election commissioner and is set to reject Gopalaswami’s recommendation that Chawla be sacked for alleged “partisan” conduct.

Although several names are doing the rounds, the Centre is keen to find someone who will continue in office till the next general election in 2014.

Election commissioners have a six-year tenure or can carry on until they reach 65, whichever is earlier.

Also, the Centre wanted a representative from a southern state as Chawla and S.Y. Quraishi, the third election commissioner, are both from the north.

Sudhakar Rao had served in the Prime Minister’s Office during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure.

Nirupama, ambassador to China, is being seriously spoken of as the next foreign secretary after Shiv Shankar Menon. Government sources said if the career graph of recent foreign secretaries was any indication, her CV fitted the bill.

She was also an envoy in Colombo and foreign ministry spokesperson when the BJP-led NDA was in power.

With three months to go before a new dispensation is in place, the Congress-led UPA has started headhunting to fill other crucial slots. It is looking for successors to home secretary Madhukar Gupta and an RBI deputy governor and for a member of the National Human Rights Commission.

For the home secretary’s post, three names have been mentioned: G.K. Pillai, corporate affairs secretary Anurag Goel and revenue secretary P.V. Bhide. But sources said Pillai was more interested in the cabinet secretary’s job.

Government sources said two names in the reckoning for the RBI job were those of Bank of India CMD T. Narayanaswamy and Punjab National Bank CMD K.C. Chakrabarty.

For the NHRC post, Satyabrata Pal, the Indian envoy to Islamabad, seems to be the favourite. Pal retires on February 28.