Mumbai: A former senior officer of the Indian Army on Saturday countered the claims of some other veterans who have denied endorsing a letter to President Ram Nath Kovind against the politicisation of the Armed Forces during the Lok Sabha election campaign. Kovind’s office had also denied receiving any such letter.
On Friday, Air Chief Marshal N.C. Suri (retd) and former Indian Army chief General S.F. Rodrigues (retd), denied having endorsed the letter. Major Priyadarshi Chowdhury, a retired infantryman of the Sikh Regiment and the officer who sent the letter, countered these statements.
Meanwhile, General Sudhir Vombatkere (retd) responded to the controversy with a letter of his own, in which he noted having “meticulously recorded the email responses” the veterans sent.
“The writer had meticulously recorded the email responses of veterans who had endorsed the letter to the President, in the time-sequence of their receipt, and the responses of all three senior veterans who had denied having endorsed the letter are on record,” Gen. Vombatkere said in a letter. “Some of these are already in the public domain, he added.
Referring to Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s remark that the letter being sent to the president was “fake news”, Mr Vombatkere said the letter was “neither news nor fake”.
“The letter is an appeal to the President of India to uphold the apolitical character of the Armed Forces,” he added.
