New Delhi, April 12:
Over 150 military veterans, including some former chiefs, have written to President Ram Nath Kovind to express outrage over the blatant politicisation of the armed forces, citing the “unusual and completely unacceptable practice” of political leaders taking credit for crossborder strikes as well as claiming the armed forces to be “Modiji ki Sena”. But the letter ran into some controversy after two of the eight former chiefs named as signatories, General S F Rodrigues and Air Chief Marshal N C Suri, said their consent had not taken before being added to the list, even as they affirmed that the “apolitical and secular” armed forces should not be dragged into politics. Latching onto the statements made by Rodrigues and Suri, defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman promptly dubbed it a “fake” letter. “It is absolutely condemnable that names were mentioned without taking permission,” she said. But several others on the list of signatories, including Admirals Vishnu Bhagwat and Sureesh Mehta, Generals Shankar Roy Chowdhury and Deepak Kapoor, acknowledged they had endorsed the letter to the President. “It’s a completely diversionary move to dub the letter a fake, instead of addressing the main and substantive issue of the blatant politicization of the armed forces,” Bhagwat told .
Former Navy chief Admiral L Ramdas, the main driving force behind the letter, also said that both Rodrigues and Suri had endorsed the letter through emails, which were released by his associates later in the day. Among the 156 signatories, there are 35 retired officers of the rank of major-general or above from the three Services.
The letter urged the President to take “all necessary steps to urgently direct all political parties that they must forthwith desist from using the military, uniforms or symbols and any actions by military formations or personnel, for political purposes or to further their political agendas”.
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