Published May 23, 2026 | 11:01 PM ⚊ Updated May 23, 2026 | 11:01 PM
Rathan U Kelkar
Synopsis: Kerala’s Chief Electoral Officer Dr Rathan U Kelkar’s appointment as Chief Minister VD Satheesan’s secretary soon after the Assembly election has whipped up a political storm, with the CPI(M) and BJP accusing the Congress of abandoning the standards it had once invoked against similar appointments elsewhere. While the government insisted that the transfer was part of the routine, the controversy has reignited questions over whether senior election officials should move directly into politically sensitive posts immediately after overseeing fiercely contested polls.
The appointment of Kerala Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Dr Rathan U Kelkar as the Secretary to Chief Minister VD Satheesan has set off a political storm in the state, with both the CPI(M) and the BJP accusing the Congress-led UDF government of undermining the perceived neutrality of the election machinery.
The formal order transferring Kelkar was issued on Saturday, 23 May, barely weeks after the conclusion of the Assembly election he had supervised.
The order, signed by Chief Secretary Dr A Jayathilak, stated that “Dr. Rathan U. Kelkar IAS (KL 2003), Chief Electoral Officer, Kerala & Secretary, Election Department, is transferred and posted as Secretary to the Chief Minister.”
What might otherwise have been treated as a routine bureaucratic reshuffle quickly turned into a politically loaded controversy because of the timing, the office involved, and the Congress party’s earlier criticism of a nearly identical appointment in West Bengal.
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The Kerala development has drawn immediate comparisons with West Bengal, where former Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Kumar Agarwal was elevated to the post of Chief Secretary after the BJP government led by Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari took charge.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had then attacked the Bengal appointment in unusually strong language, alleging collusion between the BJP and the Election Commission.
His remarks became one of the most cited political reactions during the Bengal controversy.
“In the BJP-Election Commission’s ‘chori bazaar’ — the bigger the theft, the bigger the reward,” Gandhi had said while criticising Agarwal’s elevation.
His statement has now returned to haunt the Congress in Kerala.
The BJP and CPI(M), despite being rivals in most political situations, found common ground in targeting the UDF government over what they described as a glaring contradiction between the Congress party’s national rhetoric and its actions in Kerala.
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Senior BJP leader K Surendran was among the first to attack the appointment.
“In West Bengal, when the BJP did the same, it was described as a reward for vote theft. But in Kerala, when VD Satheesan does this, it becomes the beauty of democracy. Rahul and company are the biggest hypocrites,” Surendran said.
The BJP’s argument has centred less on legality and more on political morality. Party leaders say the Congress cannot denounce such appointments elsewhere as evidence of institutional compromise and then defend a similar move in a state where it heads the government.
The issue also allowed BJP leaders to push back against allegations made earlier by the Congress regarding the Election Commission’s functioning in BJP-ruled states.
The CPI(M) escalated the matter further by linking the appointment directly to complaints the Left had raised during the election process itself.
In a strongly worded statement, the party’s state secretariat said the appointment “questions the credibility of the Assembly elections” and described the move as unprecedented in Kerala’s political history.
The party claimed the Election Commission had taken several “biased and mysterious” decisions during the poll process that allegedly benefited the UDF. The CPI(M) alleged that the appointment has deepened suspicions surrounding those decisions.
Among the issues cited by the party were: allegations regarding voter list revisions; complaints over deletion of genuine voters during Special Intensive Revision exercises; controversies involving election symbols; confusion relating to symbol printing on voting machines; complaints about employees allegedly being denied voting rights; delays in releasing final polling percentages; and allegations concerning post-poll access to strong rooms.
The CPI(M) also revived a controversy from the campaign period involving the appearance of a BJP stamp instead of the Election Commission seal in a communication sent to political parties.
It argued that the appointment has strengthened suspicion that the Election Commission functioned under political pressure during the election period.
The statement also directly challenged the Congress leadership to explain whether the same standards it invoked in West Bengal apply in Kerala.
“The Congress party and Rahul Gandhi, who criticised the appointment in Bengal at the national level, should clarify how they view a similar move in Kerala,” the CPI(M) said.
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The state government showed no indication of reconsidering Kelkar’s appointment.
Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala defended the decision as a normal exercise of administrative authority and rejected attempts to portray it as unusual.
“The appointment of Rathan Kelkar as the Chief Minister’s Secretary is the prerogative of the government. He is a competent officer, and the government has the authority to recall and appoint him. There is nothing unusual in it,” Chennithala told reporters.
Meanwhile, government sources pointed out that the official position is rooted in the structure of India’s civil service system.
“Chief Electoral Officers are generally IAS officers belonging to state cadres who are assigned election responsibilities in coordination with the Election Commission of India. Once election duties conclude, they return to regular administrative service under the state government,” said an officer with the General Administration Department.
The officer further added, “There is currently no constitutional provision, statutory restriction, or Election Commission guideline preventing a former CEO from being appointed to an executive position immediately after an election.”
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Congress supporters and UDF-affiliated social media handles moved quickly to counter allegations that Kelkar’s appointment represented something unprecedented.
They pointed to earlier instances where former Chief Electoral Officers in Kerala were given senior administrative postings after elections conducted under previous governments, including Left administrations.
One frequently cited example was that of Teeka Ram Meena, who served as Chief Electoral Officer during the 2021 Assembly election. He was later appointed Deputy Chief Secretary after the LDF government returned to power.
Another example referenced by Congress supporters was EK Majhi, who served as CEO in 2016. He was later appointed Secretary of the Agriculture Department under the Pinarayi Vijayan government.
All India Professional Congress leader Harris defended the appointment and accused the CPI(M) of selectively manufacturing outrage.
“According to this logic, was Teeka Ram Meena made Deputy Chief Secretary as a reward for rigging the 2021 election? Was EW Majhi’s appointment after 2016 also a reward?” he asked in a Facebook post.
Congress supporters insisted that such transfers have long been part of routine bureaucratic functioning. The current outrage, they said, is politically motivated because the UDF won the election.
Even critics of the Opposition’s political framing acknowledge that the controversy taps into a broader national concern regarding institutional independence.
The core question is not whether the appointment violates service rules. It does not.
The concern is whether senior election officials should move directly into politically sensitive executive positions under governments that won elections they had supervised.
“Former bureaucrats and constitutional observers have often argued that public trust in electoral institutions depends not only on actual neutrality but also on the perception of neutrality,” pointed out a Congress leader.
The absence of any mandatory “cooling-off period” has repeatedly become a point of contention whenever election officials assume politically significant posts immediately after elections.
That debate resurfaced during the West Bengal controversy.
It has now returned in Kerala with even greater political force because the parties involved have effectively exchanged positions.
In Bengal, the Congress and the Left attacked the BJP over the appointment of the former CEO.
In Kerala, the BJP and the Left are now directing the same criticism at the Congress.
The Satheesan government appears confident that the controversy will remain confined to political rhetoric. Yet, the optics remain difficult to ignore.
A senior election official overseeing a fiercely contested Assembly election has, within weeks, moved into the Chief Minister’s office as a key bureaucratic aide. Opposition parties have framed that transition as evidence of political proximity.
The government insists it reflects nothing more than administrative confidence in a capable officer.
The controversy may eventually fade like many bureaucratic disputes before it.
What it has already exposed, however, is the absence of any widely accepted institutional norm governing the post-election placement of senior election officials.
(Edited by Majnu Babu).
