Ashok Lavasa (English: Ashok Lavasa, born October 21, 1957, Rajasthan) is a former Election Commissioner of India. He is a retired IAS officer of 1980 batch. His place has now been given to Rajiv Kumar, a retired 1984 batch IAS officer. Former Election Commissioner Ashok Lavasa has resigned from the post. His resignation is effective from August 31, 2020. Ashok Lavasa is going to take up new responsibility as Vice President in ‘Asian Development Bank’.
Ashok Lavasa took charge as the Election Commissioner of India on January 23, 2018 and was to retire as the Chief Election Commissioner in October 2022. However, now he will hold the post of Vice President of ‘Asian Development Bank’. He has been given this responsibility in place of Diwakar Gupta who retired in August. The Asian Development Bank had said in a statement, ‘ADB has appointed Ashok Lavasa as the Bank’s Vice President for Private Sector Operations and Public Private Partnership. He will replace Diwakar Gupta, whose tenure is till August 31. Ashok Lavasa has extensive experience in the field of public-private partnerships and infrastructure development at the state and federal levels, where he has in-depth knowledge of public policy and the role of the private sector, it said in a statement. Ashok Lavasa retired as Union Finance Secretary before his appointment as Election Commissioner. Earlier, he was also the Union Secretary of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation.[1]
It is noteworthy that Ashok Lavasa came into limelight when during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he opposed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former BJP President Amit Shah getting clean cheat in the case of violation of the code of conduct.