Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, who was slated to head the poll panel, has now been appointed the vice-president of Asian Development Bank. The announcement was made by the regional development bank on Wednesday.
Lavasa still has two years left in his term at the Election Commission of India. He is only the second election commisioner to step down before the completion of his term. He would have retired in October 2022 as the Chief Election Commissioner. As the next in line CEC, he would have conducted Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Goa and Punjab among other states.
Before Lavasa, chief election commissioner Nagendra Singh had retired without completing his term as he was appointed a judge in the International Court of Justice at The Hauge.
Lavasa, who is a retired 1980 batch IAS officer of the Haryana crade, was appointed an Election Commissioner in January 2018. During the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Lavasa didn’t agree with Election Commission of India’s decision to give clean chits to PM Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah for allegedly violating Model Code of Conduct(MCC).
Later, he was at the center of spotlight when his wife, Novel Singhal Lavasa was given notices from the income tax department for alleged tax evasion.
Lavasa holds an MBA degree from Southern Cross University in Australia, and MPhil in Defence and Strategic Studies degree from the University of Madras.
As vice-president of ADB, Lavasa will be succeeding, Diwakar Gupta, who retires on August 31.
