Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa resigns, set to join Asian Development Bank

New Delhi, Aug 18: Election Commissioner, Ashok Lavasa has resigned to join the Asian Development Bank as Vice President.

He was on July 15 named as as the next vice president of the multilateral funding agency.

Lavasa, 62 had been appointed as Election Commissioner in January 2018 and has two years left in his tenure.

He was next in line to become the Chief Election Commissioner after the retirement of current CEC Sunil Arora in April 2021.

"The ADB has appointed Ashok Lavasa as vice-president for Private Sector Operations and Public-Private Partnerships. He will succeed Diwakar Gupta, whose term will end on August 31," the ADB said in a statement.

Lavasa is a retired 1980 batch IAS officer of the Haryana cadre. He was appointed as the EC in January 2018. Earlier he had held the portfolio of India's finance secretary between June 2016 and October 2017. He was also the environment and civil aviation secretary.