Ashok Lavasa resigns as Election Commissioner; to join ADB as vice president

Ashok Lavasa on Tuesday resigned as Election Commissioner and would soon be joining the Asian Development Bank as vice president, sources in the poll panel said. He would be joining the Philippines-based ADB sometime in September, they added. He was named the bank's vice president last month..

Ashok Lavasa on Tuesday resigned as Election Commissioner and would soon be joining the Asian Development Bank as vice president, sources in the poll panel said. Lavasa was next in line to head the EC.

Lavasa, the sources said, has sent his resignation to Rashtrapati Bhavan and has requested to be relieved on August 31. He would be joining the Philippines-based ADB sometime in September, they added.

He was named the bank's vice president last month.

Lavasa is the second election commissioner to step down from the poll panel before the completion of his term. The last time an election commission put in his papers was in 1973 when CEC Nagendra Singh was appointed a judge in the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Lavasa, a career bureaucrat, joined as Election Commissioner on January 23, 2018, and being senior most on the poll panel would have become CEC in April next year after the term of incumbent Sunil Arora ends.

He holds MBA from Southern Cross University in Australia, and MPhil in Defense and Strategic Studies degree from the University of Madras, Lavasa, a 1980 batch IAS officer of Haryana cadre, retired as Finance Secretary. "Lavasa has a long and distinguished career in the Indian civil service," ADB said in the statement citing his bureaucratic career. "He has extensive experience in public-private partnerships and infrastructure development at the state and federal levels, with deep knowledge on public policy and the role of the private sector." Lavasa led the Indian delegation in the climate change negotiations for the Paris Agreement and was instrumental in finalizing India's nationally determined contributions, which included a major role of the private sector, it said adding as Joint Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, he worked closely with many ADB projects that had private sector components.