TN Seshan

TN Seshan (1994)

Tirunellai Narayana Iyer Seshan (born December 15, 1932 in Palakkad District , Madras Presidency , British India , today: State of Kerala ; † November 10, 2019 in Chennai , Tamil Nadu ) was an Indian government official who served as Cabinet Secretary of the Cabinet for a few months in 1989 Rajiv Gandhi and from 1990 to 1996 chairman of the electoral commission (Chief Election Commissioner of India) and was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Prize in 1996 in the Government Service category. In the presidential election on July 14, 1997 , Tamile Seshan applied for the office of President of the Republic of India , but was overly defeated by KR Narayanan .

Life

Government Official and Cabinet Secretary

Tirunellai Narayana Iyer Seshan attended the Basel Evangelical Mission Higher Secondary School in Palakkad and the Government Victoria College there . The engineer E. Sreedharan was one of his classmates . He then began studying physics at Madras Christian College , which he completed in 1950 with a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc. Physics). After working there as a physics teacher until 1952, he first completed the entrance exam for the police service and in 1954 the exam for the government service IAS (Indian Administrative Service) , which he entered in 1955. According to various uses in Coimbatore , Dindigul , Madras and in the district Madurai , he began with the support of an Edward Mason Sagendorph scholarship at Harvard University , a postgraduate course in professional management science , which he in 1968 with a Master of Science (MSc Public Administration ) completed. After his return he was first secretary of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1969 and, between 1972 and 1976, joint secretary in the Ministry of Space. He then moved to the government of the state of Tamil Nadu as State Secretary for Industry and Agriculture , but resigned from this position in 1978 after disagreements with the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M. G. Ramachandran . After he followed between 1978 and 1980 Member of the Commission for oil and gas ( Oil and Natural Gas Commission ) was, he served from 1980 to 1985 again as a secretary in the aerospace ministry. He then held the post of secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forests from 1985 to 1988 and from 1988 to 1989 as secretary in the Ministry of Defense.

On March 27, 1989, TN Seshan succeeded BG Deshmukh as Cabinet Secretary of the Rajiv Gandhi Cabinet, assuming the highest post within the Indian Administrative Service . He remained in this capacity until December 23, 1989, when he was replaced by Vinod Chandra Pande , who later became governor of Bihar , Jharkhand and Arunachal Pradesh .

Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Ramon Magsaysay Prize and unsuccessful candidacy for president

After a subsequent membership in the planning commission, Seshan succeeded VS Ramadevi as chairman of the election commission (Chief Election Commissioner of India) on December 12, 1990 and remained in this position for six years until he was replaced by MS Gill on December 11, 1996 He launched a number of electoral reforms that addressed grievances and created transparency. His reforms have, by and large, changed the face of the Indian elections. The implementation of the "Model Code of Conduct", in which strict measures were taken against any politician who tried to disregard these provisions, became particularly well known. During his tenure as Chief Election Commissioner , the 1991 parliamentary election , the 1992 parliamentary election in Punjab , the 1996 parliamentary election and the presidential election on July 13, 1992 took place. In 1996 he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Prize in the Government Service category for his services as Chairman of the Election Commission .

In the presidential election on July 14, 1997 , Tamile Seshan ran for the office of President of the Republic of India as a compromise candidate for the opposition . As Chief Election Commissioner , he had earned a non-partisan reputation by significantly increasing the efficiency, transparency and legal compliance of the Indian Election Commission. However, Seshan was not without controversy due to his often less diplomatic and considerate demeanor during his tenure as election officer. Ultimately, however, he was clearly defeated by the previous Vice President K. R. Narayanan . While Narayan received 956,290 votes (94.97 percent), TN Seshan received only 50,631 votes (5.03 percent). This equated to 4,231 votes for Narayan in the electoral college versus 240 votes in favor of Seshan.

He was married to Jayalakshmi Seshan from 1959 until her death in 2018.

Web link

• Former Chief Election Commissioner TN Seshan, man behind India's electoral reforms, passes away. Seshan has been credited for several electoral reforms including ending malpractices and bringing transparency to the electoral process. . In: The New Indian Express of November 10, 2019

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gilmartin, David ( North Carolina State University ), 2008: "One Day's Sultan: TN Seshan and the Reform of the Election Commission in the 1990s". PDF ( Memento of the original from December 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ GC Shekhar: Autumn of Al-Seshan: Lest we forget how bad it was till he cleaned it up. The Telegraph (Calcutta), April 7, 2014, accessed on June 5, 2015 (English). 
3. ↑ Harinder Baweja: Stooping to conquer: In his quest for President's job, TN Seshan projects a mellowed persona. indiatoday.com, May 31, 1997, accessed June 5, 2015 .