(Image source from: financialexpress.com)

Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Sushil Chandra, a 1980-batch Indian Revenue Service (IRS) official has been appointed as the election commissioner.

He is currently the chief of the Central Bureau of Direct Taxes (CBDT), the top policy making baody of Income Tax Department.

Sushil Chandra, IIT graduate will join the election panel as the second election commissioner.

At present former bureaucrat Sunil Arora is the chief election commissioner and Ashok Lavasa, also a former bureaucrat, is the election commissioner.

Chandra was appointed as the CBDT chief on November 1, 2016. He was due to retire in 2017, but Chandra has since been given two extensions.

Since Sushil Chandra was scheduled to serve as chief of CBDT till May 2019, but now he will have to resign from the body a few months in advance.

The Election Commission of India will oversee the elections for the Lok Sabha and the state assembly polls.

The poll panel is expected to announce the schedule for the 2019 lok sabha elections and assembly elections schedule for few states over the course of the next few weeks.

-Sai Kumar