Govt clears appointment of Suhag as next army chief

59-year-old Lt Gen Suhag, a Gorkha officer, is the senior most among the Lt Generals. He will have a tenure of 30 months as the chief of the force. An alumnus of Sainik School, Chittorgarh, Suhag joined NDA in 1970 and was commissioned in the army on June 1974. He was a Company Commander in ‘Op Pawan’ in Sri Lanka and commanded 53 Infantry Brigade which was committed in counter insurgency operations in the Kashmir Valley from July 2003 to March 2005.

Suhag was at the centre of a controversy triggered by ‘Discipline and Vigilance’ ban imposed on him by the then army chief Gen V K Singh in connection with an intelligence operation in Assam earlier. The ban on Suhag, who was then 2 Corps Commander, was lifted soon after Gen Bikram Singh took over in May 2012. BJP has been questioning the ‘hurry’ in making the appointment and insisting that the matter be left to the next government as there is still time left.

The process of appointment, which had got mired in a controversy because of BJP’s opposition, gained momentum after the defence ministry got a clearance from the Election Commission and it recommended the name of Suhag. Former Army Chief and now BJP member Gen V K Singh has been in the forefront of opposing Suhag’s appointment.