The letter written by the two Election Commissioners to the Cabinet Secretary over the functioning of a senior official was not against Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar but a senior deputy election commissioner (DEC).
This comes a day after the poll body clarified that the letter, which was highlighted in an investigative report by The Indian Express, had nothing to do with its policy matters.
According to a report by Hindustan Times, citing a person privy to the developments, the letter to Cabinet Secretary TV Somanathan, linked to poll-related matters, was dated July 29 and was regarding the functioning of a senior DEC.
It added that the letter would have been marked to the President, had it been against the CEC. The ECI is facing heat after the report by The Indian Express indicated differences within the poll panel.
The letter in question was linked to the issues of work allocation and oversight of the commission’s information and technology (IT) division.
In the letter, as quoted in the report, the ECs said, "most recently, in a radical departure from the norm, Joshi and Sandhu wrote separately to the Cabinet Secretary complaining about changes in work allocation that, in effect, removed a layer of oversight of the IT backbone for the electoral rolls."
"They made it clear: these changes had been done without their knowledge, and they struck them down," the report added.
In its clarification, the ECI on Saturday said the alleged letter was "not related to any policy matter of the Commission or IT division but related to the working of an officer on deputation to ECI."
"The work re-distribution orders issued by the concerned officer were not actually implemented after the orders of the two Commissioners and the oversight over the IT division by the DEC was never actually withdrawn," it added.