Capt Amarinder demands Manohar Parrikar’s sacking
Wednesday, 26/10/2016
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=167167&boxid=59078&uid=&dat=2016-10-26
Chandigarh : State Congress president Captain Amarinder Singh has asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to sack Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar in the interest of the morale of the Indian Army, if the latter fails to quit immediately.
“You cannot allow such an incompetent jokers to continue to hold such a sensitive portfolio,” Captain Amarinder told Modi in a strongly-worded statement issued here on Tuesday.
He condemned the Defence Minister’s diktat downgrading Army ranks as compared to their counterparts in the civil administration.
Reacting strongly to a report in a section of the media that a new Defence Ministry letter has downgraded the status of military officers across ranks, Captain Amarinder charged Parrikar with meticulously and shamelessly chipping away at the morale of the Indian Army in order to satiate vested bureaucratic interests.
According to the report, a Colonel, who was until now equivalent to a director, has now been downgraded to a rank equivalent to a joint director. Similarly, a director-ranked civilian officer has been equated to a Brigadier, and so on.
Expressing shock at this evident `mischief-plus’ by bureaucrats, with the ruling political establishment playing into their hands, Captain Amarinder urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to personally intervene and have the ministry’s totally unacceptable and unjustified decision revoked without a minute’s delay. “You can imagine what the effect of low morale will be on the country’s strength against its enemies,” the Punjab Congress chief warned the Prime Minister, asking, “who will bear the responsibility for the army losing its morale?”
“You will be squarely responsible for any loss of morale. Are you and your government prepared to take the onus of putting India’s strong army on the path of self-destruction, which could eventually lead to the nation’s destruction,” Captain Amarinder demanded to know from Modi.
