The Election Commission of India has withdrawn its order appointing Sandeep Mittal to head Tamil Nadu’s Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, reversing part of a wider pre-poll bureaucratic reshuffle after the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam objected that the move was “biased and arbitrary”. In its revised order on Saturday, the Commission said Mittal would continue as Director General of Police, Armed Police, while leaving unanswered the immediate question of who would oversee the anti-corruption wing. The rollback came only days after the poll body, acting ahead of the 23 April Assembly election in Tamil Nadu, ordered a series of senior-level changes that also included the replacement of Chief Secretary N. Muruganandam with M. Sai Kumar and the transfer of S. Davidson Devasirvatham from the vigilance and anti-corruption post. The original order, issued on 8 April, placed Sandeep Mittal, a 1995-batch IPS officer, in charge of Armed Police, Vigilance and Anti-Corruption, underscoring the Commission’s stated aim of tightening administrative neutrality during the campaign period.
Saturday’s reversal narrowed that intervention but did not erase the political damage. The DMK had written to Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar challenging both the change in the Chief Secretary’s office and Mittal’s assignment to the DVAC. In its representation, the party argued that no persuasive reason had been given for moving Muruganandam and said the anti-corruption wing had no direct role in the conduct of the election. It also alleged that the choice of Mittal created an avoidable perception problem at a sensitive stage of the campaign, insisting that the office required an officer seen to be above partisan suspicion.
That complaint cut to the heart of a larger battle over institutional control in Tamil Nadu’s election season. The Commission’s reshuffle was presented as part of poll preparedness, with outgoing officials barred from election-related responsibilities until polling is complete. Yet the DMK read the moves as a politically loaded intervention rather than a routine assertion of the Commission’s supervisory powers. Chief Minister M. K. Stalin publicly accused the poll body of overreach after the 8 April order, asking what had changed in the state’s administrative record within a matter of days and suggesting the transfer of senior officials was designed to assist his rivals.
The opposition, however, has offered the opposite reading. AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami backed the Commission’s earlier action, arguing that the ruling party had become too reliant on the bureaucracy. That support reflected a broader opposition complaint, also echoed by Tamilaga Vetri Kazhagam, that parts of the state machinery had tilted towards the government during the run-up to polling. Those allegations were rejected by the DMK, but they formed the backdrop to the Commission’s original decision to reorder the top administrative and policing structure in the state.
What makes the withdrawal significant is not only the fate of one officer but the signal it sends about the limits of election-time central intervention in a politically charged state. The Election Commission has wide authority to direct transfers and postings when it believes the conditions for a fair poll require them. But that authority is most defensible when the administrative link to electoral conduct is clear and the grounds are transparent. The DMK’s protest appears to have found traction at least on the narrower question of the anti-corruption portfolio, where the Commission has now stepped back without, so far, publishing a detailed explanation for the change of course.
The lack of clarity over the status of Davidson Devasirvatham adds another layer of uncertainty. NDTV reported that the revised order did not specify whether he would continue as DVAC chief after Mittal’s appointment to that role was cancelled. That ambiguity matters because the DVAC is among the most politically sensitive arms of the state apparatus, especially during an election in which questions of neutrality, enforcement and official discretion are already under intense scrutiny.