Ahead of Lok Sabha polls, Election Commissioner Arun Goel resigns
Lok Sabha elections 2024 fast approaching, Election Commissioner Arun Goel has resigned from his post, a government notification showed on Saturday, leaving Chief Election Commissioner alone in the saddle.
Goel's resignation leaves a couple of vacancies in the poll panel.
The Election Commission of India (ECI) has been a multi-member body since the 1990s and has conducted eight Lok Sabha elections in such a format.
Only in two cases, that is during the 1999 and 2009 Lok Sabha polls, was the three-member ECI rendered short by one member, due to members' retirement in the middle of the election cycle.
However, the 2024 Lok Sabha case is different as Election Commissioner Anup Pandey retired well before the election cycle began (on February 15), leaving a vacancy in the poll panel.
Goel, a former bureaucrat, was appointed as Election Commissioner in 2022.
The Punjab cadre officer of the 1985 batch, joined the Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey in the poll panel.
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