Why Odisha chief electoral officer's VRS plan after SIR raises eyebrows
Odisha chief electoral officer R.S. Gopalan has sought voluntary retirement from service (VRS) nearly 21 months before his scheduled superannuation, saying he wants to focus on family and personal matters.
A 2001 batch IAS officer, Gopalan has been serving on the post since July 2024, his tenure covering the crucial Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the state. He also holds the additional charge of secretary in the excise department.
Gopalan, who is scheduled to retire in June 2028, said his decision to seek voluntary retirement was in no way connected to the SIR controversy in the state. “I wanted to take VRS for personal reasons. I would like to focus on personal matters. I will concentrate on my family and stay put in Bhubaneswar until my son's school education is complete,” he said.
The decision, however, comes shortly after the completion of SIR, which invited criticism from the Opposition Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Congress over alleged deletions from the voter rolls.
Asked whether he was seeking VRS in response to the Opposition’s demands for his resignation, Gopalan said: “Let them be happy if they want. I have completed 25 years in government service on September 2 and, therefore, decided to take VRS.”Gopalan said he had intended to apply for voluntary retirement after the publication of the final electoral rolls, and felt the “major task” had been completed following its release on September 21.
The post-SIR electoral rolls in Odisha contain around 31.6 million voters.
The Opposition had alleged large-scale exclusion of voters during the revision process. The BJD claimed more than 2.75 million voters were excluded and accused the election machinery of concealing the figures. The party also alleged that the chief electoral officer had “manipulated” voter data.
Odisha Congress president Bhakta Charan Das, reacting to Gopalan's decision, posted on X: “Just after completion of the SIR process, Odisha’s chief electoral officer has applied for voluntary retirement. How strange is this.”
Gopalan has held various key positions in his administrative career, including of deputy director general at the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), secretary in the labour department and as director of agriculture.
His VRS move comes soon after another senior Odisha official opted to leave service. Bhubaneswar deputy commissioner of police Jagmohan Meena, an IPS officer, resigned earlier this month. The BJP government accepted Meena's resignation on August 27 and forwarded it to the Union ministry of home affairs, which accepted it effective September 11.
Arkamoy Datta Majumdar is an Assistant Editor with India Today magazine, based in Kolkata. He writes about politics, international relationship, football, and society, with a particular focus on eastern India and the political transformation of West Bengal. He oversees the editorial operations in the eastern states of West Bengal, Odisha and Sikkim.
His reporting sits at the intersection of politics and everyday life. He covers elections and political parties, governance and public policy, political movements, identity and cultural politics, federalism, border issues and the changing relationship between the state and its citizens. In West Bengal, his work has closely followed the rise of the BJP, the evolution of the Trinamool Congress, the Left and Congress, electoral politics, voter-list and citizenship questions, welfare politics and the ways in which political competition increasingly plays out through culture, religion, education and public institutions. He has covered the crucial Bangladesh elections of 2026 from Dhaka.
He also follows the wider politics of the eastern region, particularly where questions of borders, migration, regional identity, security and diplomacy intersect with domestic politics.
For Arkamoy, political journalism is as much about understanding people and places as it is about following politicians. He is interested in what happens between an announcement and its implementation, between a political slogan and its impact on the ground, and in the quieter social and cultural shifts that often reveal where politics is heading.
