Coup fears baseless: Antony

Apr 04, 2012 |

Agencies

New Delhi/Visakhapatnam

Tags:

Defence Minister A.K. Antony today termed as 'absolutely baseless' fears of any coup attempt by the armed forces and expressed confidence that they will not do anything to undermine democracy.

"Absolutely baseless. Army has already explained this. It is usual, natural activities. Nothing unusual. We are absolutely confident of the patriotism of the armed forces. Don't question their patriotism. They will not do anything to undermine Indian democracy," he told a press conference in New Delhi.

He was replying to a question about a newspaper report today that there was an unusual movement of two key army units towards Delhi without notifying government on the night of January 16-17, the day Army Chief Gen V.K. Singh moved the Supreme Court on the age issue.

The questioner told him that the report raised considerable alarm and fears of a coup and whether the government was afraid of such a possibility and what did it do. Would he rule out the possibility of a coup. Antony said the armed forces personnel were 'true patriots' and 'don't question the patriotism of the soldiers who are dying in the frontiers of the country'.

"I am proud of the Indian Army, Navy, Air Force and the Coast Guard," he said. He also urged the media not to lower the dignity of the armed forces on issues of national security.

"I have a humble request to make. Issues like these affecting national security, Indian armed forces, we cannot make the luxury of these controversies which damage the honour and dignity of armed forces," Antony said.

He said, "India is a democracy. India will continue to remain a democracy. Indian armed forces will do everything to strengthen our national interest and they will be part of our democratic government. Please do not expect anything like this to happen anywhere else".

The newspaper said in a front page report on Wednesday that the Hisar-based Mechanised Infantry and elements from the airborne 50 Para Brigade in Agra had moved towards the capital in January.

It said the movement took place on the night of Jan 16, without following the standard operating procedure of informing the defence ministry in advance.

The report said since this happened around the time when Gen. Singh was waging a judicial battle against the government over his age row, it created unease and suspicion in Delhi.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/140154" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-2af213a8bfcda74ad3b6d882a517123f" value="form-2af213a8bfcda74ad3b6d882a517123f" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85454358" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>