List of all Chief Election Commissioners of India

Chief Election Commissioners (CECs) of India lead the autonomous Election Commission, established in 1950. Here's the complete chronological list based on official records up to March 2026, including their tenures.

 

Complete List of CECs

 

No.	Name	Tenure Start	Tenure End
1	Sukumar Sen	21 March 1950	19 December 1958
2	K.V.K. Sundaram	20 December 1958	30 September 1967
3	S.P. Sen Verma	1 October 1967	30 September 1972
4	Nagendra Singh	1 October 1972	11 February 1973
5	T. Swaminathan	12 February 1973	8 February 1977
6	S.L. Shakdher	9 February 1977	25 February 1982
7	R.K. Trivedi	26 February 1982	19 June 1985
8	R.V.S. Peri Sastri	20 June 1985	24 January 1986 (acting, then full)
9	V.S. Ramadevi	25 January 1986	25 March 1990
10	T.N. Seshan	12 December 1990	11 December 1996
11	M.S. Gill	12 December 1996	13 June 2001
12	J.M. Lyngdoh	14 June 2001	7 February 2004
13	T.S. Krishnamurthy	8 February 2004	15 May 2005
14	B.B. Tandon	16 May 2005	29 June 2006
15	N. Gopalaswami	30 June 2006	20 April 2009
16	Navin Chawla	21 April 2009	29 July 2010
17	S.Y. Quraishi	30 July 2010	10 June 2012
18	V.S. Sampath	11 June 2012	15 January 2015
19	Harishankar Brahma	16 January 2015	18 April 2015
20	Nasim Zaidi	19 April 2015	5 July 2017
21	Achal Kumar Jyoti	6 July 2017	22 January 2018
22	Om Prakash Rawat	23 January 2018	1 December 2018
23	Sunil Arora	2 December 2018	8 April 2021
24	Sushil Chandra	9 April 2021	14 May 2022
25	Rajiv Kumar	15 May 2022	Present (as of March 2026)

 

Key Notes

 

s Sukumar Sen oversaw India's first general elections (1951-52).​

 

s T.N. Seshan (1990-96) is renowned for enforcing the Model Code of Conduct aggressively.​

 

s Tenures are typically 6 years or until age 65, whichever is earlier.​

 

s Rajiv Kumar remains the current CEC, appointed in 2022.

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