With barely fourteen days to go before Tamil Nadu votes on April 23, the Election Commission of India triggered a sharp constitutional confrontation on Wednesday, April 8, by ordering the immediate transfer of the state’s Chief Secretary N. Muruganandam and posting senior IAS officer M. Sai Kumar in his place. In a parallel reshuffle, senior IPS officer Sandeep Mittal was appointed head of the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) and Armed Police, replacing S. Davidson Devasirvatham.
The Commission directed that both changes be implemented with immediate effect and asked for a compliance report by 6 pm on the same day. It also stipulated that the outgoing officers Muruganandam and Devasirvatham must not be posted to any election-related duties until polling is completed. Sai Kumar, a 1990-batch IAS officer who had been serving as Commissioner of Revenue Administration, and who was reportedly on leave until April 12, rushed to Chennai and took charge the same evening. Notably, Sai Kumar had served as secretary to former Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami during the AIADMK government, a biographical detail the ruling DMK was quick to note.
Chief Minister M.K. Stalin reacted with forceful and immediate condemnation. “I strongly condemn the Election Commission, which is fully active in the electoral field without taking to the field to directly campaign in support of the BJP, for now engaging in a one-sided, overreaching political action by replacing Tamil Nadu’s Chief Secretary,” he posted on X. He accused the ECI of carrying out the BJP’s orders: “The constitutional protection granted to the Election Commission is not for doing election work for the BJP.” Stalin also pointed out that in BJP-ruled Assam and in Bihar states that recently held polls neither the Chief Secretary nor the DGP was replaced mid-election, arguing that the targeted nature of the transfers in Tamil Nadu made the partisan intent clear.
The transfers are the latest in a series of ECI-ordered reshuffles in the state. Earlier, on April 2, DGP (Head of Police Force) G. Venkatraman had been replaced by Sandeep Rai Rathore. Several collectors and IPS officers had also been transferred. The cascade of changes had been sought, in part, by TVK president Vijay, who on March 28 wrote to the ECI requesting the transfer of several top officials including Muruganandam and Devasirvatham to ensure what he termed a free and fair election.
Senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram weighed in on April 9, invoking a Supreme Court observation about the ECI’s boundaries: “A few years ago, the Supreme Court in a judgement cautioned against the ECI becoming an ‘imperium in imperio’ that was a prescient observation. The transfer of an upright, efficient and unbiased Chief Secretary in TN and the dismissive manner in which the ECI dealt with four MPs of the TMC seem to substantiate the apprehension of the Supreme Court,” he wrote on X.
The ECI, for its part, has maintained that the transfers are part of standard poll preparedness measures aimed at ensuring a neutral administrative environment ahead of polling. The Commission regularly exercises powers under Article 324 of the Constitution to reshuffle officials in election-bound states when it believes the existing setup could compromise free and fair elections.
For the DMK, which has built much of its 2026 campaign around the narrative of “Team Tamil Nadu vs Team Delhi,” the transfer is yet more evidence in their telling of the Centre using institutional levers to tilt the playing field. As Tamil Nadu’s election enters its final and most intense stretch, the battle over who controls the bureaucratic machinery of the state has now joined the battle for votes as a defining theatre of this campaign.
–Samuthiran
