The UPA government appointed Lt Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag as India’s next army chief to succeed General Bikram Singh who will retire from this post on July 31.
Lt Gen Dalbir Singh is currently the Vice Chief of Army Staff. He will be the senior-most Lieutenant General in the Indian Army when General Bikram Singh retires. The new army chief is expected to take oath on August 1.
Former army chief and BJP candidate General VK Singh said that the propriety and timing of this decision was “ethically wrong”.
In May 2012, Gen VK Singh, during his last week as army chief, imposed a discipline and vigilance ban on Lt Gen Dalbir Singh for allegedly ignoring an intelligence operation that went awry. When Gen Bikram Singh was appointed as the army chief following Gen VK Singh’s appointment, he lifted the ban on Gen Dalbir Singh, making him the Eastern Army Commander in June 2012. He took over as the Vice Chief of Army Staff on January 1, 2014.
Lt Gen Dalbir Singh joined the National Defence Academy in 1970 and was commissioned into the 4/5 Gorkha Rifles (Frontier Force) in June 1974.
