Salina Singh removed as Chief Electoral Officer Madhya Pradesh; VL Kanta Rao appointed successor
BHOPAL: In an important late evening development on Tuesday in Madhya Pradesh, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of the poll bound state Salina Singh was removed from her post by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The 1986 batch MP cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Singh would be succeeded by another MP cadre IAS officer, the 1992 batch VL Kanta Rao, who is presently posted as Principal Secretary in the state government, official sources confirmed to The New Indian Express.
Importantly, Rao was the additional CEO of MP during the 2013 state assembly polls. Salina Singh completed three years in office as CEO MP on June 26.
The decision to remove Singh as MP CEO was taken on Tuesday late evening by the ECI, which sought a panel of three names from the state’s chief secretary BP Singh, to select from among them Salina Singh’s successor in the state, where assembly polls are slated towards the end of this year.
Singh’s removal as CEO of MP comes at a time, when the opposition Congress was repeatedly complaining to the ECI about presence of large number of fake voters in the voter list of the state.
The development comes just a day after the a ECI team comprising Deputy Election Commissioner Chandrabhushan Kumar and Sandeep Saxena held meeting in Bhopal to take stock of preparations for the year end polls in the state.