Prakash Rajpurohit, an IAS officer from the Rajasthan cadre, has taken up a Deputy Election Commissioner post at the Election Commission of India — a move that observers expect to raise questions about how responsibilities are distributed within the poll body, especially over the electoral rolls and information technology portfolios.
A vacancy left by Sanjay Kumar — recalled ahead of schedule to the AGMUT cadre from which he had originally been drawn — has now been filled by an officer who entered the IAS through the 2010 batch. Questions about how files move through the Election Commission's IT department — the unit responsible for digital electoral-roll infrastructure — have drawn attention to the reshuffle, with Election Commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi understood to have raised the matter formally.
No definitive answer has yet emerged on whether the administrative arrangements pre-dating Rajpurohit's appointment will remain in place, nor on how the portfolios covering electoral rolls and information technology are to be divided up as Assembly elections draw closer — most notably the Uttar Pradesh contest anticipated in the early months of next year.
Responsibility for the electoral rolls division and the IT wing rested with Kumar, whose name also appeared on the Election Commission's 24 June 2025 order that formally launched the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls. According to documents reviewed at the time, both Election Commissioners had put their concerns in writing to the Cabinet Secretary, flagging that files originating from IT department head Dr Seema Khanna were bypassing Kumar rather than being directed through him.
Assigned to the Election Commission on deputation from the National Informatics Centre beginning in 2025, Khanna now leads its IT department, with responsibility for the body's digital infrastructure spanning electoral-roll management systems, including ERONET. Poll panel insiders indicated that all paperwork relating to her passed through Kumar's hands up until the point she was elevated to Level 15, a grade carrying the standing of Additional Secretary. At Level 14, the grade that maps to Joint Secretary, Kumar's position sat within that tier of the administrative hierarchy.
Once Kumar's repatriation took effect, the routing of Khanna's files shifted to pass through Garg — a change traceable to an internal order that Senior DEC Manish Garg had issued after the promotion, stipulating that her paperwork be forwarded directly to the Election Commissioners. Rajpurohit's appointment to the body coincides with a period in which the EC's internal administrative arrangements have attracted wider notice.
