Retired IAS officer Naresh Gupta, epitome of quiet efficiency, dies in Chennai

CHENNAI: Retired IAS officer Naresh Gupta, a senior who inspired a legion of young officials as the personification of quiet efficiency, died in Chennai on Monday due to cardiac ailments. He was 72, and is survived by his wife and son.

A native of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, who joined the service in the 1973 batch, Gupta had served in many capacities, including holding the powerful post of Home Secretary for around a year in 2001-02 when DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi was arrested by the police. Not long afterwards, he was moved to the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission as its member-secretary – apparently at his own wish.

Gupta resembled Gandhi in more ways than one: he looked like Gandhi, was frail, soft-spoken and had a gentle demeanour. (Incidentally, one of his Master’s degree was in Gandhian Thought.) But those who knew him from his work knew this exterior was rather deceptive. He was a thorough bureaucrat of the old stock, who locked his moral compass on probity as his North Star, a path to which he stuck with tenacity regardless of who or what he was up against.

What the people in Tamil Nadu remember him by is his work as the Chief Electoral Officer, especially the second stint that lasted for five years from 2005.

As the CEO, he shunted out Collectors and police superintendents ahead of elections to ensure that no stone is left unturned in the effort to safeguard the sanctity of the electoral process. Even a dozen years after he retired, this toughness in action is still vivid among voters in the State, who were used to elections being a game where the rich and influential played to different rules.

Journalists who reported on politics and elections at that time remember him as an officer who was always available for clarifications but one who was never interested in publicity.

"He was a very simple and straightforward officer. There were days where he would travel in an auto-rickshaw, stunning the Secretariat staff. However, though soft spoken, he was a tough master when it came to conducting elections," recalled an official with the Public Election Department.

“Naresh Gupta was an epitome of a virtuous officer who impressed most of us through his simplicity and humility; we lost a great person,” State Chief Electoral Officer Satyabrata Sahoo told DT Next.

Expressing his condolences, Governor RN Ravi said, “He served the people of Tamil Nadu with the utmost diligence and integrity, and will always be remembered as an outstanding administrator.”