NEW DELHI, Jan 14:
Government may be all set to appoint Election Commissioner H S Brahma as the next Chief Election Commissioner in place of V S Sampath who demits office tomorrow.
If Brahma is elevated, then it will be in keeping with the convention of elevating the senior-most Election Commissioner as the CEC, a recommendation the Law Ministry had made to the Government.
Once it is cleared by the Prime Minister, the proposal goes to the President, who appoints the CEC as required under the Constitution.
A 1975-batch IAS officer of Andhra Pradesh cadre, Brahma (64), who hails from Assam, will have a tenure of slightly over three months till April 19 when he turns 65, the upper age limit for the post under the Constitution.
Brahma was a Power Secretary in the Centre before his induction into the Election Commission. He assumed charge as one of the three Election Commissioners on August 25, 2010.
After J M Lyndogh, Brahma will become the second officer from the northeast to be appointed to this post.
Meanwhile, V S Sampath, Chief Election Commissioner, demits office tomorrow, capping less than six years of an eventful tenure, occasionally marked by controversies, that saw him conduct two Lok Sabha elections and at least one round of Assembly polls in all the states.
Diminutive and low-profile throughout his career–whether in the IAS or in the Commission, Veeravalli Sundaram Sampath, turns 65 tomorrow, the upper age limit under the Constitution for holding the post.
Stepping in as a Commissioner in March, 2009 at the end of first of five-phased Lok Sabha polls, he lays down office as CEC after completing the general elections in last May and Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir in December with a record vote percentage, notwithstanding the threat of gun and a harsh winter.
A 1975 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre officer, Sampath began as a district collector of large districts and worked in various wings of the state machinery before ushering in largescale power sector reforms in the state in the 90s.
He came to the Centre later and served as Secretary, Rural Development and Power before his elevation to the Election Commission.
However, there were difficult moments during the 2014 Lok Sabha polls following controversy over the decision not to allow a public meeting of Narendra Modi in a communally- sensitive area in Varanasi where he was a candidate and in Ahmedabad where he displayed election symbol of BJP and addressed a press conference close to an election booth on voting day. (PTI)
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