Kerala Chief Electoral Officer Rathan U. Kelkar has been appointed Secretary to CM VD Satheesan

Rathan U. Kelkar | Photo credit: FILE PHOTO

A political controversy has erupted over the appointment of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO – Kerala) Rathan U. Kelkar as Secretary to new Chief Minister VD Satheesan. Both the opposition Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) questioned the motives behind the decision.

The CPI(M) state secretariat claimed that the appointment called into question the credibility of the assembly elections. The government’s decision is unprecedented and endorses allegations by the Left Democratic Front (LDF) that the Election Commission of India (EC) has taken action in favor of the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), the CPI(M) said. Regarding Mr. Kelkar’s appointment, the CPI(M) also drew parallels with the appointment of Manoj Kumar Agarwal, a 1990-batch IAS officer who oversaw the West Bengal elections as director general, as general secretary of the new BJP government.

The CPI(M) and the BJP in Kerala also pointed to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s “The bigger the theft, the bigger the reward” remark over Mr Agarwal’s appointment in West Bengal. ”So Rahul ji, what happened in Kerala, is it still ‘reward for theft’ or suddenly the beauty of democracy?”, BJP leader K. Surendran responded on social media on Saturday (May 23, 2026).

It is understood that Mr Kelkar was contacted on Friday and asked to join the new chief minister’s team. A formal order was issued on Saturday handing over Mr. Kelkar, who is the Director General of Kerala and Secretary of the Election Department, as Secretary to the Chief Minister.

Meanwhile, the home minister and a senior Congress leader defended the appointment, calling it a prerogative of the state government. He is a good officer. There is nothing unnatural about the appointment, Mr. Chennithala said in response to questions at a press conference here.

Mr. Kelkar, a 2003 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Kerala cadre, has been serving as the CEO of Kerala since December 2024.

In recent months, Mr. Kelkar has been in the news for directing the Special Intensive Review (SIR) of electoral rolls and the subsequent Kerala Assembly elections on April 9, in which the UDF secured a landslide victory by winning 102 of the 140 assembly seats. Both the then ruling CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Congress-led opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) – now in power – opposed the Election Commission of India’s (EC) decision to hold the SIR in Kerala.

Once Mr. Kelkar is relieved as CEO, the state government will have to submit a list of names to the EC to appoint a new official for the post.

The General Administration Department also issued orders to appoint 20 staff in Mr. Satheesan’s office, including Sreekumar T as Special Private Secretary, Seeji GS as Press Secretary and Roy Mathews as Media Secretary, Thilakan KPK and Mohanachandran MS as other Private Secretaries.

Published – 23 May 2026 17:08 IST