Chief Election Commissioner and secretary in the Ministry Environment and Forests.
Birth
T.N.Seshan (Tirunellai Narayana Iyer Seshan) was born on 15th December 1932 to a lawyer in Palghat(Palakkad) District in Kerala. He was the youngest child among seven children in his family. His father was working in the District Court.
Marriage and family
T.N.Seshan married Jayalakshmi Seshan. The couple did not have any children.
Education
T.N.Seshan finished his schooling in the Basel Evangelin Mission Higher Secondary School. Later he studied a course in the Government Victoria College in Palakkad. He got the Bachelor of Science Honors degree in Physics in the Madras Christian College. In 1968, he got a Master degree in Public Administration from the Harvard University. T.N.Seshan had known many languages like Tamil, Sanskrit, Malayalam, English, Kannada, Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi .
Life Career
From 1950 to 1952, he taught in the Madras Christian College. He left the Madras Christian College in 1953 and then passed the Police Service Exam. But he did not join that service. In 1954, he cleared the Indian Administrative Service exam and joined as the trainee in 1955 Tamil Nadu Cadre.
T.N.Seshan got the appointment to be an apprentice administer and assistant Collector of Coimbatore for a year. He was the trainee in the Academy of Administration in Delhi. He got the appointment as a sub-collector in Dindigul.
After this, he moved to Chennai. There he was appointed as the Deputy Secretary and Director of Programs in the Secretariat for Rural Development. He was managing one of the Panchayat’s local administration Programs during the year 1958 to 1962.
He got the appointment as the Director of Transport of Madras State in 1962. Then he became the Collector of Madurai District in 1964. After a two and half year working here, he went to England to pursue his Master’s degree.
Posts held by him after returning from Harvard University
After getting a Master degree, he became the Secretary to the Atomic Energy Commission in 1969. He worked as the Joint Secretary from 1972 to 1976 at the Department of Space. He came to Tamil Nadu in 1976 and became the secretary of Industries and Agriculture for the State for a short period.
He made the resignation from this post due to the differences with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and shifted to Delhi. There he got the appointment as the Oil and Natural Gas Commission. After two years of working there, he became the additional secretary in the Ministry of Space from 1980 to 1985.
Then, T.N.Seshan worked as the secretary in the Ministry of Environment and Forests for the year 1985 to 1988. He made the opposition for the Sardar Sarovar dam and Tehri dam on the river Narmada during his tenure, but that was overruled.
He was the Secretary for the Ministry of Defence for ten months in 1988. Till 1989, he was serving as the Secretary of Internal Security. He became the 18th Cabinet Secretary in the Indian Civil Service in 1989. After this, he became the member of the Planning Commission.
Work in Election Commission
From 12th December 1990 till 11th December 1996, he was the 10th Chief Election Commissioner of India. He took the responsibility to restructure the vision and position of the Election Commission of India. He found more number of malpractices during the election time and made several reforms to solve those issues.
He made several reforms like Voter IDs, election code of conduct, confines over election candidates and the appointment of election officials to the election facing state from other states. He took the action against, to correct the illegal activities like liquor distribution at election time, bribing, caste voting, use of worship places for campaigns and use of high volume loudspeakers.
He was the Commissioner, when the Election Commission stopped elections in Punjab and Bihar due to the issues in the election. In 1999 General elections of India, he disqualified 1488 candidates for 3 years for failing to produce the expenditure details. After going through 40,000 expenditure accounts, he cancelled 14,000 candidates for untrue information.
T.N.Seshan Work after his retirement
In the Indian Presidential election of 1997, he contested against the K.R.Narayanan, after his retirement from the Election Commissioner post. He had taught the leadership in the Great Lakes Institute of Management. He had also taken classes in the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy in Mussoorie. T.N.Seshan was appointed as the interim administrator by the Madras High Court in 2012.
T.N.Seshan in old age home
T.N.Seshan and his wife did not have anyone to take care of them at their old age, since they did not have any children. Moreover they had several health problems, they spent their later life in the Old age home. T.N Seshan provided help with his income, to the other members in the Old age home, which includes medical bills and financial needs. They stayed their three years and returned to home.
T.N.Seshan Achievements
T.N.Seshan was the one to implement the Election Code of Conduct as a law and order action. He had set the expenditure limit for contesting candidates. Then he was the first person to introduce Voter ID for eligible voters. He banned the bribing, official machinery for campaign, distribution of money during elections. He prohibited the use of high volume equipments for campaign, use of religious centers for campaign and candidates requesting community based votes.
Books of T.N.Seshan
He had written two books. In 1995, T.N.Seshan made the publications of his books “The degeneration of India” and “A Heart full of Burden”. This Book “The degeneration of India” analyzes the political and administrative activities after the independence. Then the book “A Heart full of Burden” gives brief addressing on the electoral processes and politics in India.
Award
T.N.Seshan won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1996, for his service in the Government.
Death
T.N.Seshan died in Chennai on 10th November 2019 at his home.