That was a normal Army exercise clarifies retired General

New Delhi:  A fresh controversy has erupted over the movement of two Army units near Delhi after a retired top official Lt-Gen A K Choudhary said he was summoned by Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma to express government’s concern about the troop’s movement.

Lt-Gen Choudhary said the hub of the confusion was the result of trust deficit between the government and the Army.

However, National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon said there was no distrust between the Army and the government. “How can I comment on something that I haven’t seen. Because I am a civilian, I work very closely with the Army every day. I don’t see any mistrust.”

Two years after a report which said the government had feared a coup by the army under General V K Singh’s command,  Lt.-Gen Choudhary, who was the then DGMO, in an interview to The Indian Express said the Defence Secretary had summoned him late at night and said troops must go back immediately. He later told the Defence Secretary that this was an exercise and that he had already told them to stop and take a different route.

Sources say the Cabinet wanted V K Singh, who had been at loggerheads with the government, to be removed on the same night. But it was Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma who saved his job.