Harishankar Brahma

Harishankar Brahma (Bodo: हरिशंकर ब्रह्म) (Assamese:হৰিশংকৰ ব্ৰহ্ম)(born 19 April 1950) is a former Chief Election Commissioner of India. He is a retired I.A.S. officer of 1975 batch from the Andhra Pradesh cadre
Mr. Brahma, who retired as the Union Power Secretary in April 2010, held office till April 18, 2015. He is the first person from Bodo community as well as from assam and second person from the North-East to become an Election Commissioner, after J. M. Lyngdoh.

Born on 19 April 1950, he completed his Post Graduation in Political Science from Gauhati University (Assam) and graduated from St. Edmund’s College, Shillong. He did his schooling from Don Bosco School, Guwahati.

Harishankar Brahma has held various senior level posts in the Government of India and State Government prior to the present posting. Before retiring as Secretary from the Ministry of Power, Shri Brahma held posts such as Joint Secretary (Border Management) for more than four years and completed almost all the border fencing and other border infrastructural work on Indo-Pak – Indo-Bangladesh border. He also worked as Special Secretary & Additional Secretary in National Disaster Management Authority (Ministry of Home Affairs). He was the Member-Secretary of the State Electricity Board, Andhra Pradesh and also worked as:

• District Collector & Magistrate for 4 years;
• Commissioner, Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad for 3 and a half years;
• Commissioner (Transport) & Ex-officio Secretary (Transport, Road & Building), Government of Andhra Pradesh for 2 and a half years;
• Commissioner & Ex-officio Secretary (Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs) for 5 years; and
• Principal Secretary (Environment, Forest, Science & Technology), Government of Andhra Pradesh.

He was appointed as the election commissioner in August 2010. He has overseen two Lok Sabha elections and at least one round of Assembly elections in every state.

In an article in The Indian Express on 28 July 2012, he blamed illegal immigration from Bangladesh for the 2012 Assam violence. He mentioned that even Election Commission is faced with this problem by saying, "Even the Election Commission of India is not immune to this problem. It has to tackle the problem of D-Voters (doubtful voters), numbering approximately 1.5 lakh, while preparing the electoral rolls of Assam. The subject matter is sub-judice. This also poses a very serious security threat to the country. It is advisable that these pending cases lying in various courts and tribunals be disposed of quickly and within a definite timeframe. People who are found to be illegal migrants by these tribunals should be deported. Unless this basic issue of illegal migration into the country is resolved, the problem is bound to recur from time to time and in place to place."