Ashok Lavasa on Tuesday resigned as Election Commissioner and will soon be joining the Asian Development Bank as vice president, sources in the poll panel told PTI. He was next in line to become the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC). Lavasa, the sources said, has sent his resignation to Rashtrapati Bhavan and has requested to be relieved on August 31.
He will be joining the Philippines-based ADB sometime in September, they added. He was named the bank's vice president last month.
A press release issued by the Asian Development Bank (ABD) stated, "The ADB has appointed Ashok Lavasa as Vice-President for Private Sector Operations and Public-Private Partnerships," the multilateral lending agency had said in a statement last month. "He will succeed Diwakar Gupta, whose term will end on August 31."
Lavasa, who would have retired in October 2022 had he become the CEC, is the second election commissioner to step down from the poll panel before the completion of his term.
As per reports, his resignation came while the Election Commission is preparing to conduct upcoming polls amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Lavasa, 1980 batch IAS officer of Haryana cadre who has studied is MBA from South Cross University in Australia and MPhil in Defence and strategic studies degree from the University of Madras now retired as a financial secretary.
He still has over two years left in his term at the Election Commission of India and as CEC, he would have conducted Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur, and Goa, among other states.
His premature exit puts his colleague Sushil Chandra next in the line of succession.
Lavasa had made headlines during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections when he gave a dissenting note to the Election Commission of India (ECI) giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former BJP president Amit Shah on allegations of violating the Model Code of Conduct. Three members of the Lavasa family including his wife had come under the scanner of the Income Tax Department for alleged non-declaration of income and disproportionate assets.