Two Election Commissioners, Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi, wrote to Cabinet Secretary T V Somanathan objecting to Deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg's conduct, an RTI reply cited by NDTV shows. The letters were separate, and they alleged that Garg had exceeded his brief in allocating work within the Election Commission of India.
The Cabinet Secretariat declined to act on the complaints, according to India Today. The RTI response records the refusal. It leaves the Election Commission's internal hierarchy unsettled as the body prepares for the next round of state elections.
Why two commissioners wrote to the bureaucrat, not the CEC
The decision to route a grievance outside the ECI marks a rupture. The Commission normally settles internal allocation questions through the Chief Election Commissioner, who presides over the three-member body. By writing to the Cabinet Secretary, the two Election Commissioners signalled that the internal mechanism had failed them.
The letters, sent separately, deserve attention. A joint letter would signal a settled bloc confronting the Chief Election Commissioner. Separate letters may indicate distinct grievances or simply administrative convenience. The RTI record does not clarify which. The distinction matters for how the Commission's internal politics will play out over the coming months.
The complaint concerns allocation of work among Deputy Election Commissioners and other officers. Such allocation determines who reviews draft electoral rolls, who signs off on expenditure limits, and who coordinates with state chief electoral officers. When two of three constitutional functionaries object to the same officer's conduct, the dispute touches the Commission's capacity to act as a collegium.
The Cabinet Secretariat's refusal compounds the problem
The Cabinet Secretariat is not a disciplinary authority for Election Commissioners. That office coordinates appointments and administrative files across departments. A refusal to act may be legally sound and institutionally damaging at the same time. The two commissioners asked for intervention, and the Secretariat answered that the matter was not its to fix.
The Cabinet Secretariat's role is administrative coordination. It cannot discipline a Deputy Election Commissioner, and it cannot reassign work inside the ECI. Its refusal may not be indifference. It may be a statement that the Commission must solve its own problems. That statement carries weight because it comes from the highest coordinating office of the Union government.
The answer leaves the ECI to manage its own dispute. The full Commission has not issued a statement on the complaint. Neither Sandhu nor Joshi has made the letters public beyond the RTI disclosure. Garg continues in office. The absence of a formal resolution process means the grievance may fester through the election calendar.
Work allocation is not a clerical detail
Work allocation in the ECI determines how the Commission prepares for national and state votes. The Commission maintains a voter roll that is among the world's largest. Preparations for any election involve surveillance of model code violations, scrutiny of nomination papers, and coordination with central and state police forces. A Deputy Election Commissioner who allocates work poorly can slow every one of those functions.
The complaint does not allege corruption. It alleges overreach. That distinction matters. The Election Commission's credibility rests less on any individual commissioner and more on the appearance of collective decision-making. When two of three members say they could not control the allocation process, the appearance of control weakens. Public confidence in electoral outcomes begins with confidence that the referee is not fighting in the locker room.
What the RTI does not disclose
The RTI reply confirms that complaints were made and that the Cabinet Secretariat declined to act. It does not include the full text of the letters. It does not record why the Secretariat took no action. It does not show whether the Chief Election Commissioner was copied or consulted. These gaps are not incidental. India's RTI framework requires the applicant to have asked for specific records; the absence of supporting material may reflect what was sought, not what exists.
The ECI itself has not published the correspondence. A constitutional body cannot be compelled by RTI, but Parliament can push it. The Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law and Justice has the jurisdiction to ask for a status report without intruding on the Commission's independence. That line, between accountability and interference, is narrow. It is also the line the Commission must walk if the dispute is to be resolved without further damage.
The RTI's importance multiplies because it arrives when public discourse around electronic voting machines and electoral rolls remains charged. Political parties have long demanded transparency in Commission decisions. An internal complaint that becomes public through an RTI application feeds that demand. It creates a narrative that the Commission's own house is divided. That narrative is harder to walk back than any single work-allocation order.
The institutional fix that does not involve the Cabinet Secretariat
The most direct remedy is within the ECI's own hands. The three Election Commissioners could form an internal review committee of two retired judges or senior civil servants, not to adjudicate blame but to examine the work-allocation framework. A published report would restore the collegiality that the complaint has called into question. The Commission has done this before in other administrative matters.
Political parties are watching. Every state election is followed by allegations of bias, booth capture, and voter list manipulation. The Commission's internal health is not a sideshow. It is the precondition for every other electoral safeguard. If two Election Commissioners cannot get their objection heard inside the institution, political parties will ask why the institution should be trusted to hear voters' objections.
The Cabinet Secretariat's refusal is not the problem. The problem is that the ECI lacked a mechanism to resolve the objection before it became an RTI story. A constitutional body that cannot manage its own work allocation will struggle to manage a national election.
For Indian readers, the takeaway is institutional, not personal. The Election Commission's authority depends on the public belief that its three members can disagree without disabling the institution. The next few months will show whether that belief survives two letters and a quiet refusal.
