Indian congress labels Army Chief Bipin Rawat member of BJP

Indian Congress declared the current Indian Chief of the Armed Staff, Bipin Rawat a leader of the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday, ARY News reported.

The current Indian Army Chief was called a representative of the current political party ruling the country after a massive victory in the near past, re-electing Narendra Modi for a second term as Prime Minister with a thumping majority.

Read More: 2019: The Year of Protests

Army chief Bipin Rawat earlier in the day had criticized violence during protests over the citizenship law, saying “leaders are not those who lead masses in arson and violence”. He was immediately called out for taking sides while at the helm of a designation that must be neutral and apolitical.

“Leadership is all about leading. When you move forward, everybody follows…But leaders are those who lead people in the right direction. Leaders are not those who lead people in inappropriate directions, as we are witnessing in a large number of university and college students, the way they are leading masses of crowds to carry out arson and violence in our cities and towns. This is not leadership,” said the outgoing Army chief at an event in the capital of India, Delhi.

General Rawat, who is due to retire on December 31, has spoken for the first time against the nationwide protests against the Citizenship Act. But he is not the first; before him, another top army officer made politically tinged remarks.

At least 20 people have died, mostly in Uttar Pradesh, in clashes between protesters and the police, who have also been caught firing at the crowd in many cases.