Chief Election Commissioner Veeravalli Sundaram Sampath demitted his office

Veeravalli Sundaram Sampath demitted his office as Chief Election Commissioner on 15 January 2015. He demitted the office after he turned 65, the upper age limit to hold the post as per the Constitution of India.

He will be succeeded by Hari Shankar Brahma.

Sampath during his 6-year tenure in the Election Commission conducted two Lok Sabha elections and at least one round of Assembly polls in all the states. Sampath also presided over the conduct of Presidential and Vice-Presidential elections in 2012.

About Veeravalli Sundaram Kamath
• He stepped in as a Commissioner in Election Commission in March 2009
• Sampath an IAS officer of a 1975 batch Andhra Pradesh cadre started his career as a district collector
• He served the Union Government as Secretary, Rural Development and Power
• The election commission under Sampath undertook several initiatives, like
a) Distribution of voter identity slips with photos at the door steps of the voters
b) Permission to vote for 11 hours, the longest-ever in the Lok Sabha elections
c) To conduct awareness campaigns among people to participate in voting, he started the process of appointing awareness observers from the Indian Information Service officers
d) Verifiable Voter Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) was introduced in seven Lok Sabha constituencies
e) Social media was brought under the ambit of media laws and regulations