Internal rift prompts Election Commission to restore oversight of IT wing

The Election Commission has restored supervisory oversight of its information technology wing, marking an administrative retreat after months of disquiet among senior election commissioners over the autonomy granted to its technical directorate.

Under a fresh directive issued on 4 November, Director General of Information Technology Seema Khanna has been instructed to route departmental files through Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Pawan Kumar Sharma, but this bureaucratic realignment comes only after considerable internal discord had spilled into the higher echelons of government, The Indian Express reported.

The development follows an internal order issued on July 28 by Senior Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg, who had removed Deputy Election Commissioner Sanjay Kumar from the charge of the IT and communications divisions, allowing Khanna to report directly to the Election Commission.

A day later, Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi wrote to Cabinet Secretary TV Somanathan, raising objections to the redistribution of responsibilities, according to an investigation published by The Indian Express on September 23.

Their concerns came against the backdrop of Joshi's warning in May about the “gradual centralisation” of the electoral roll database, for which he had proposed an audit to ensure that only legally authorised officials possessed credentials to modify its records.

In August, Sandhu also noted that state-level election officials had complained of inadequate access to the digital platform used to maintain electoral rolls. He further questioned Khanna's legal authority to restrict the access and operational freedom of statutory authorities.

The Election Commission, however, maintained in a statement on September 26 that oversight of the IT division had never been withdrawn and that the July work redistribution order had not been implemented.

Garg, an IAS officer of the Himachal Pradesh cadre, had assumed additional charge of the administration division on July 28, while Deputy Election Commissioner Bhanu Prakash Yeturu was on leave.

In their correspondence, Sandhu and Joshi alleged that Garg had altered the responsibilities of senior officials without consulting either the Commission or the officers concerned, despite instructions that such changes required prior discussion or approval.