Amid reports of internal conflict within the Election Commission of India (ECI), the roles of two key officials — Director General (IT) Seema Khanna and Senior Deputy Election Commissionser Maneesh Garg — have been highlighted.Media reports have mainly pointed out how the two Election Commissioners SS Sandhu and Vivek Joshi repeatedly raised concerns over not reportedly being taken into confidence over several key decisions. These were concerning various aspects relating  to the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls and the alleged centralisation of ECI’s digital platform ECINET.In context of these concerns, the role of at least two key personnel within the poll body have specifically been highlighted, whose actions were questioned and flagged by both the election commissioners.Seema Khanna and ECINetKhanna, the ECI’s Director General (IT), heads the election registration officers, district election officers and chief electoral officers who were allegedly restricted from accessing the poll body’s app ECINet for registering voters.Prior to joining the ECI on deputation in 2025, Khanna was associated with the National Informatics Centre (NIC) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). She holds BTech and MTech degrees and a Doctorate in information security from IIT Delhi.As DG (IT) in the Election Commission, Khanna’s department has a key role in developing the technology infrastructure supporting electoral services, including the ECINet app.The controversy as per media reports, centres on allegations that access to the voters’ database on ECINet has become centralised under the ECI’s IT department.Interestingly, in her previous tenure at MeitY, she was part of the team which had developed and rolled out the AarogyaSetu app. It was extensively used during the CoVID-19 pandemic for contact tracing, symptomatic mapping and self-assessment. It was an app which saw the fastest number of downloads globally.As per media reports, Sandhu and Joshi had separately flagged that Election Registration Officers’ (ERO, normally the SDM) access to the ECI’s digital platform ERONet (predecessor to ECINet) was being restricted.Sandhu later also reiterated as per media reports that “Khanna doesn’t have legal authority to restrict proper and complete access and freedom to operate, as given by law, to the statutory authorities”.Maneesh Garg’s roleThe other official whose role was flagged is senior deputy Election Commissioner Maneesh Garg.According to media reports, Garg is in the eye of the storm for allegedly changing the work allocation without reportedly consulting the two Election Commissioners soon after getting the additional charge of administration in the poll body, and who reportedly removed another fellow officer from the oversight of the DG (IT).The move reportedly drew objections from Sandhu and Joshi, who separately wrote to the Cabinet Secretary asking for “appropriate action”.Garg is a 1996-batch IAS officer of the Himachal Pradesh cadre. He has been posted in the Election Commission of India (ECI) since September 2024. In July this year, his post was upgraded from the level of joint secretary to additional secretary, with the tenure extended up to September 1, 2027.He is currently posted in the poll panel on central deputation from September 2024 till September 2028.Prior to this, Garg served as Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) in Shimla from June 2022 till September 2024. He had earlier served as joint secretary (school education) in the Union Education Ministry from May 2015 to May 2022 and held several positions in Himachal Pradesh, key among them being Divisional Commissioner of Shimla and Dharamsala.