The Election Commission of India is expected to speak with one voice, but history shows that its three-member constitutional bench has frequently faced sharp internal disagreements. The recent publication of official complaints of Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi against SIR procedures brought the institutional conflict back to the center stage. Nevertheless, internal disputes in EC are nothing new.
The issue : Chief Election Commissioner TN Seshan challenged the multi-member model in the courts, claiming that it prevents him from exercising his executive powers independently. Gopalswamy, took an extremely unusual step of requesting the removal of one of his colleagues, the Election Commissioner Navin Chawla. The accusation : Gopalswamy approached President Pratibha Patil requesting the removal of his colleague based on the allegations of political prejudice in favor of a certain political party for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
When the government designated MS Gill and GVG Krishnamurthy as election commissioners in October 1993, the shift from a single-member to a multi-member body started a fierce turf war. Institutional tension reached unimagined levels in January 2009 when the incumbent Chief Election Commissioner, N. The decision : Ultimately, the President rejected the proposal and Navin Chawla became the next CEC in April 2009. In the 2019 general elections, there were notable dissenting views expressed by the Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa concerning the clean chits issued to political bigwigs about their breaches of the Model Code of Conduct.
