New Delhi: Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa, who was next in line to head the poll panel, resigned on Tuesday.
Lavasa's resignation from the post of the Election Commissioner came a month after he was named as the new vice-president of the Philippines-based Asian Development Bank (ADB).
As per sources, Lavasa has submitted his resignation to President Ram Nath Kovind and has requested to be relieved on August 31.
Lavasa was next in the line to become India's Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) after the retirement of the current CEC Sunil Arora in April 2021.
Now after Lavasa's resignation and Arora's retirement, Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra is likely to take charge as next CEC in May 2021.
Lavasa has now become the second election commissioner to step down from the poll panel before the completion of his term.
The last time an election commissioner put in his papers was in 1973 when Chief Election Commissioner Nagendra Singh was appointed a judge in the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
As Election Commissioner, Lavasa grabbed headlines when he registered his dissent on the poll panel's clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then BJP President Amit Shah on an alleged violation of the Model Code of Conduct during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Ashok Lavasa is a retired 1980 batch IAS officer of the Haryana cadre. He was appointed as Election Commissioner in January 2018. Previously, he held the portfolio of India's Finance Secretary from June 2016 till October 2017.
Besides this, he was also India's environment secretary and the civil aviation secretary.
It is to be noted that Lavasa has an MBA degree from Southern Cross University in Australia, and MPhil in Defense and Strategic Studies degree from the University of Madras.
He completed his Bachelor of Arts Degree with English Honors and a Master of Arts in English Literature from Delhi University.
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