BREAKINGNEWS: India's iconic former Chief Election Commissioner T N Seshan dies

"Sad to announce that Shri TN Seshan passed away a short while ago. He was a true legend and a guiding force for all his successors. I pray for peace to his soul," tweeted another former Election Commissioner S Y Qurashi confirming the news.

T N Seshan was a 1955 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Tamil Nadu cadre and India owes the cleaning up of the election process much to him when he assumed office as the 10th Chief Election Commissioner of India (1990–96). 

He was the winner of the prestigous Ramon Magsaysay Award for government service in 1996.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted to express his condolence. "Shri TN Seshan was an outstanding civil servant. He served India with utmost diligence and integrity. His efforts towards electoral reforms have made our democracy stronger and more participative. Pained by his demise. Om Shanti."

Though known for his efforts to implement laws in the election process and his unique way of functioning that instilled fear in the politicians, he was also a Cabinet Secretary, which is the senior most position in the Indian civil service hierarchy, and Member, Planning Commission of India, before his inspiring work as the CEC.

 He is hailed as the first election commissioner in India who used his office to implement rules and often show the politicians their place with his use of the rule book of India's election laws.  

Back in 1994 as the Election Commissioner, he had asked then Prime Minister Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao to sacrifice his sitting Cabinet ministers Sitaram Kesari and Kalpnath Rai for influencing voters and flouting the Model Code of Conduct during the election time.

However, after his retirement when he fought for the position of President of India In 1997, he lost to KR Narayanan.

Congress senior leader Shashi Tharoor in a condolence post on Twitter said he was "a courageous & crusty boss who asserted the Election Commission’s autonomy & authority as no CEC before him had done." "A pillar of our democracy," he said.

In one of his interviews to Rediff, he had said after his retirement: "Today the journalist is junk, unadulterated junk. The IAS officer is junk. Your police officer is junk... We are under the impression that today's bureaucrats are under tremendous pressure from politicians. Today, yes. But it is no worse than what it was 30 or 40 years ago. It is just that the general atmosphere has weakened and become bad."

To a question in the same interview of his, that when he took over, nobody in India was aware that the chief election commissioner could do something, he said: "The gentlemen who preceded me were 'gentlemen.' There were eight of them behind me. They were all gentlemen. I was not."