Officer flagged by ECs Sukhbir Sandhu, Vivek Joshi to cabinet secretary oversees poll panel’s IT wing

The letters written by two election commissioners (ECs) to cabinet secretary TV Somanathan about the alleged misconduct of senior deputy election commissioner Maneesh Garg dealt with a worrying removal of oversight into the working of the Election Commission’s director general of IT, Seema Khanna, HT learns.The two letters, written by Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi separately in July are identical in their language. While they do not mention a difference of opinion in the poll body, they are clear that Garg’s decision to remove the routing of the DG (IT)’s files to a deputy EC (DEC) was a violation.Letters question removal of oversight layerThey pointed out that Sanjay Kumar, the DEC who Khanna’s files were earlier routed to, was a seasoned officer aware of the overall electoral process, and that by removing this layer of oversight, Garg had undermined the process.This is significant because it provides a context to…