Ex-election commissioner Arun Goel appointed next envoy to Croatia

NEW DELHI: Retired IAS officer and former election commissioner Arun Goel has been appointed the next ambassador of India to Croatia . He is expected to take up the assignment shortly, said govt in a statement.

Goel had created a sensation in March this year by resigning as EC just before the announcement of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. His tenure was till Dec 5, 2027, and would have become chief election commissioner (CEC) after incumbent Rajiv Kumar's retirement in Feb next year.

Congress had expressed deep concern over his resignation, saying that if the "systematic decimation" of independent institutions was not not stopped, democracy would be usurped by dictatorship. Goel, a retired bureaucrat, was a 1985-batch IAS officer of the Punjab cadre. He joined EC in Nov 2022. He never made public the reason for his abrupt resignation.

His appointment as EC had also generated a controversy with a PIL in Supreme Court alleging the appointment was arbitrary and violative of institutional integrity and independence of the Election Commission Of India. He was appointed EC a day after he took voluntary retirement from service. tnn