Nitish Kumar has refused to join opposition leaders in criticising the new Army Chief appointment.
Nitish Kumar, Bihar Chief Minister, has refused to join the ranks of opposition leaders criticising the government over the appointment of the new Army Chief, pleading that he does not know enough about it to comment.
"I don't know much but I don't want to drag the Army into any controversy," was all that Mr Kumar would offer when asked to comment on the promotion of Army vice chief Lieutenant General Bipin Rawat, superseding two officers senior to him. Both the Congress and the Left Front have called the decision "unfortunate". The Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari questioned the decision saying "Is it that all these officials who were superseded were not able? or was it cherry picking?"
While the BJP-led government at the centre will read support in the Chief Minister's refusal to criticise the appointment, senior leaders of his party have said that in Nitish Kumar's short, uncomplicated reply lies his policy of backing the centre on matters of foreign policy and the armed forces regardless of who is in power.
They point out that Nitish Kumar had also not lent his voice to the opposition chorus that questioned the government over the surgical strikes conducted by the Army across the Line of Control in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir to target terror bases in September this year. Or, they said, on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Lahore in Pakistan last year.
Mr Kumar has recently stood isolated among opposition leaders in his support of PM Modi's demonetisation move, upsetting his allies in Bihar, especially the Congress, which has led a united opposition in attacks on the government in parliament and outside on the ban on 500 and 1,000-rupee notes, alleging that the cash crunch that has followed punishes the poor not the corrupt as was intended.
But Nitish Kumar has backed the notes ban for its aim of combating corruption and black or undeclared money and reads a groundswell of support among the people for it. Today, however, he criticised the Modi government's next step of attempting a transition to a cashless economy, saying, "Cash is an integral party of Indian culture and the nature of people, which just cannot be wished away.
The Chief Minister said he will meet leaders of his party the Janata Dal United to assess the notes ban after December 30, the deadline for depositing banned notes in bank accounts.