Odisha chief electoral officer Gopalan applies for voluntary retirement after SIR

Chief electoral officer R Santhana Gopalan, who oversaw the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral roll in Odisha amid Opposition protests over voter deletions, has applied for voluntary retirement, citing personal and health reasons unrelated to the exercise, people aware of the matter said on Thursday.

A 2001 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the Odisha cadre, Gopalan, submitted his application on Wednesday, a week after the completion of the SIR in the state.

The people cited above said Gopalan, who is from Tamil Nadu and has around 18 months of service left, had been considering quitting for months. He delayed the decision until the SIR process was completed and the revised electoral roll was published, they added.

The Odisha electoral roll, with 31.6 million voters, was published on September 21 after SIR. The opposition Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Congress questioned the deletion of around 1.7 million names from the roll.

Gopalan’s decision comes as the Election Commission of India (ECI) faces scrutiny over the SIR across states. The Indian Express last week reported that Election Commissioners Sukhbir Singh Sandhu and Vivek Joshi recorded objections to decisions taken in the ECI’s name at least 14 times over 10 months. The reported disagreements involved changes to Form 6 for the inclusion of names in the electoral roll, the centralisation of controls in Delhi, voter deletion appeals in West Bengal and the failure to add eligible voters in Goa.

Gopalan, who was likely to remain in Odisha for about two years to allow his son to complete his schooling before deciding on his plans, has been the chief electoral officer since July 2024. Gopalan has also been deputy director-general at the Unique Identification Authority of India over a career spanning about 25 years.

In the last three years, four IAS and Indian Police Service (IPS) officers from the Odisha cadre have resigned. IAS officer VK Pandian, who was considered the successor to former chief minister Naveen Patnaik, opted for voluntary retirement in October 2023 before joining the BJD ahead of the 2024 assembly and Lok Sabha polls in the state. His wife, Sujata Karthikeyan, an Odisha cadre IAS officer, resigned in March 2025 before joining BJD in June this year.

Jagmohan Meena, a 2013 batch IPS officer, took voluntary retirement last month to join a corporate house. Early this year, IPS officer CA Ramdas (2025 batch probationer) resigned while still under training at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy, Hyderabad.