New Delhi: Former election commissioner (EC) Arun Goel, who resigned abruptly before the general elections, has been appointed as India’s ambassador to Croatia, marking the first political appointment to a diplomatic post in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third term.
In a brief statement on Saturday evening, the Union external affairs ministry announced, “Shri Arun Goel has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to the Republic of Croatia. He is expected to assume the position shortly.”
Although Croatia is not politically critical for India, a diplomatic posting in Zagreb is still coveted due to its location in Europe.
Goel, a 1985 batch officer of the Indian Administrative Services, had assumed charge as an EC on November 18, 2022, a day after he resigned from the administrative services.
His appointment also took place just a day before the Supreme Court began hearing a petition challenging the government’s right to appoint election commissioners of its own choice and that this process violated the constitutional requirement that the Election Commission of India (ECI) be independent of the executive.
The Supreme Court dismissed a petition against Goel’s appointment but observed that all the procedures, which included “processing of the same at the hands of the Minister for Law, the further recommendations of the concerned officers, the recommendation of the Prime Minister, the acceptance of the application of the appointee seeking voluntary retirement, waiving the three months period and the appointment by the President under Article 324(2), which came to be notified, took place in a single day”.
The petition had been filed by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), claiming that it was arbitrary and violative of ECI’s institutional integrity and independence. However, the Supreme Court dismissed the PIL, citing that the Constitution bench had declined to pass any substantive order altering the appointment.
Less than two years later, Goel resigned on March 10, 2024. His resignation came just a month before the start of the first phase of voting in India’s general elections on April 19.
There was no reason for Goel’s leaving the post at the time of the resignation, which left the ECI with just one member, chief election commissioner (CEC) Rajiv Kumar.
Within a week, a three-member selection committee, headed by Prime Minister Modi, appointed two former IAS officers, Gyanesh Kumar and Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, as ECs
The only opposition member of the selection committee, Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, voiced his dissent over the appointments, asserting that he was not given the shortlist of candidates in advance and only received a list of 212 officers on Wednesday, just a day before the appointments were finalised.
The Supreme Court refused to squash the two appointments, but expressed “concern on the procedure adopted for selection of the incumbents to the two vacant posts of ECs, a significant constitutional post”. “Such selections should be made with full details and particulars of the candidates being circulated to all members of the selection committee,” said the apex court’s two judge bench.
Goel’s posting is significant as it is only the fifth political appointment at a diplomatic mission made by the NDA government since Modi took over as prime minister in 2014.
In December 2015, former Mumbai police commissioner Ahmed Javed was appointed as Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia – a post which had been lying vacant for over seven months.
Less than two years later, former Central Bureau of Investigation director R.K. Raghavan, who headed the SIT probe set up by the Supreme Court that cleared the Indian prime minister’s involvement in the 2002 riots, was appointed as India’s high commissioner to Cyprus.
In 2019, former army chief Dalbir Singh Suhag was appointed as India’s envoy to Seychelles. It is an occasional practice to appoint retired service chiefs to lead Indian missions abroad and some former foreign secretaries have also been posted to head missions in key countries.
In October 2020, Union external affairs ministry announced Vishal V. Sharma as India’s next ambassador to UNESCO in Paris. Sharma, a ruling party official, had previously served as an officer on special duty to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his time as chief minister of Gujarat.
