Telangana appoints Retd IAS officer C Partha Sarathi as new Election Commissioner

Retired IAS officer C Partha Sarathi has been appointed the Election Commissioner for Telangana. Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan Tuesday issued a notification appointing the ex-bureaucrat as the Telangana Election Commissioner, for three years from the date of assumption of office.

The order comes months after the State Election Commissioner V Nagi Reddy demitted office in April 2020 after completion of his five-year term.

A 1993 batch IAS officer, C Partha Sarathi is an MSc degree holder in Agronomy from AP Agricultural University, Hyderabad.

Starting his career as Project Director of DRDA (District Rural Development Agencies) in Adilabad, he has served as district collector of Karimnagar, Managing Director of MARKFED, Commissioner of Information and Public Relations and MD, AP Film, TV and Theatre Development Corporation, and Project Director AP State AIDS Control Society in the united Andhra Pradesh.

Since the formation of the new state in 2014, he has held the posts of the Commissioner of Civil Supplies, Agriculture Production Commissioner(APC), and Principal Secretary(Agriculture) to the



government, and retired as the Director-General of Environment Protection Training and Research Institute(EPTRI) on April 30, 2020.

During his tenure as Principal Secretary(Agriculture), Telangana witnessed a jump in food grain production from 68.22 lakh tonnes in 2015-16 to 241.24 lakh tonnes in 2019-20.

He has also served as the Vice-Chancellor(in-charge) of Telangana University, Sri Konda Lakshman Telangana State Horticultural University, and Dr. BR Ambedkar Open University. He was a Director on the Board of NABARD, Mumbai, between 2016 and 2019.

The new SEC will oversee the elections to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation(GHMC), Greater Warangal Municipal Corporation(GWMC) and Municipal Corporation of Khammam, apart from elections to vacancies in several local bodies.

The Forum for Good Governance(FGG) had submitted a representation to the Telangana Governor on September 4, requesting the appointment of the State Election Commissioner and the Secretary to the Commission, while also highlighting a large number of vacancies in Municipalities and Corporations for which elections are to be held.