It is an everyday phenomenon to see political opponents outwit each other all the time through their daily quotes, speeches and bites to media. But in that process of outsmarting each other they quite often they get their facts incorrect. Recent statement of BJP chief, during his  West Bengal tour, who said that his party can never be dubbed as anti-Bengali, as alleged by Mamta, because the party’s founder itself was a Bengali, Shyamaprasad Mukherjee. But many pointed out that Mukherjee founded Bhartiya Jansangh, in 1951, not BJP, as the BJP came into existence in 1980. 

Another instance also like this Mr Sha, while expressing his solid support for “one nation, one election,” he had stated that there were instances when people in a state, had voted for one party at the centre, and another in the state, when both Assembly,and Parliament elections held together and also it was stated by him that in Karnataka in 1980 the voters chose Congress for Parliament and for the state, Janatadal secular. But the statement was incorrect on two counts (I stand for correction if Iam wrong) one, in 1980 the elections were not Simultaneous held and secondly, Janata party’s win was in the year 1983.

Again if one just goes back to period of recent Karnataka elections, where our PM and the Congress, both national parties gave totally incorrect information to the public, just to garner the sentiment and votes. Most of the mistakes were from our PM, but here again I don’t like to blame him totally, (as it must be his speech writer

who fed the information) , but whatever it was, PM  who said during elections rallies, that , it was in the year 1948, it was under General Thimmayya’s leadership the war against Pakistan was won and after that victory the saviour of Kashmir, Gen Thimmayya  was repeatedly insulted by the then PM Nehru and then Defence Minister VK Krishna Menon and it was for this reason Gen Thimmayya had resigned for his post.

But there was no element of truth in it. In the first instance Gen Thimmayya was not the Chief of Army, at that time, it was Mr Roy Bucher. It is authoritatively learnt that Gen Thimmayya was divisional Commander with the rank of Major General. While it was correct to say that Gen. Thimmayya  played critical role in the Kashmir war, he was never humiliated either by PM or Defence Minister at that point of time. Thirdly it is incorrect to say that Krishna Menon was the Minister of Defence, it was Sardar Baldevsingh. 

  The cursory look at the carrier of Thimmayya,shows how Nehru rewarded him,for the good work.In1953 Nehru appointed him to head the UN Neutral Nation’s Repatriation Commission I. A very prestigious appointment, and subsequently awarded Padmabhushan, in 1954, by Nehru Govt, later he became Army Chief, superseding two officials. Unfortunately,the Congress spokes man, who was to correct the record straight, also did the mistake by clarifying that Gen Thimmayya was Indian High commissioner in UK during 1957-62. The fact of the matter is Gen Thimmayya was Army Chief in Delhi, Ofcourse the high commissioner was V K Krishna Menon .

Coming to Gen Cariappa, he was not Army Chief during 1962 Indo-China war. He had retired 9 years before., and the fact is his 4th successor was Chief when the war broke out. Further it was stated that Gen Cariappa was also traeated badly, by the Nehru, also, the facts suggest other wise. The fact could be Nehru and Cariappa might have had differences, but the fact was, that after his term, as Chief of Army, he was sent as High Commissioner to Australia, thus starting a tradition that the Sevice chiefs could be sent as Ambassadors, and this trend continued till 1980s.  importantly, after 33 years ,Rajiv made him Field Marshal, which will never have any retirement,if Iam correct.

If you ponder over all these facts, Congress Governments ill treated military heads of Karnataka, is far from truth, as the facts speak the other way. If Mr Surjewala had kept quiet, the mistakes would have been one sided.