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Lt General Raju to take over as army vice chief
Lieutenant General BS Raju will succeed Lieutenant General Manoj Pande who takes charge as India’s 29th army chief on Saturday.
Lieutenant General Baggavalli Somashekar Raju will take over as the next army vice chief on May 1, replacing Lieutenant General Manoj Pande who takes charge as India’s 29th army chief on Saturday after General Manoj Mukund Naravane completes his term in the top job, officials familiar with the development said on Friday.
Raju, a qualified helicopter pilot, is currently the army’s director general of military operations (DGMO) and in that capacity, he was closely monitoring the lingering two-year border standoff with China in the sensitive Ladakh sector. Lieutenant General Manoj Katiyar will replace Raju as the army’s next DGMO.
Raju’s elevation as vice chief is being seen as rare as usually one of the army commanders is appointed to the key post. However, it is not unprecedented. General SF Rodrigues was first appointed vice chief and he later went on command the Central and Western Commands before taking charge as army chief in 1990.
To be sure, the vice chief and army commanders are equivalent in rank.
“General Raju has been promoted to the rank of army commander and appointed as vice chief,” said a senior official, asking not to be identified.
An alumnus of Sainik School Bijapur and National Defence Academy, Raju was commissioned in the Jat Regiment on December 15, 1984.
In a military career spanning 38 years, Raju commanded his battalion during Op Parakram in the western theatre and in Jammu & Kashmir, the Uri brigade along the Line of Control, a counter-insurgency force, and the Srinagar-based HQs 15 Corps. He has also served as the commandant of the Indian Military Training Team in Bhutan, the army said in a statement on his appointment.
“He has tenanted many important regimental, staff and instructional appointments in the Army Headquarters and in field formations,” it added.
Raju is a qualified helicopter pilot who carried out operational flying in Somalia as part of a United Nations peace mission. He has undergone important courses in India, and attended the Royal College of Defence Studies, UK. He also holds a master’s degree in counterterrorism from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, United States.
Meanwhile, General Pande will be the first officer from the Corps of Engineers, also known as Sappers, to become army chief. Officers from the Sappers have served as army commanders and vice chiefs, but never held the army chief’s position.
Also Read | Who is Lt. General Manoj Pande, India's next army chief?
Pande will take over as chief at a time when India is working on a road map for the military’s theaterisation to best utilise the resources of the three services for future wars and operations, and when India and China are locked in a border row.
India’s first chief of defence staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat, who was killed in a helicopter crash last December, was spearheading the theaterisation drive. The government is yet to appoint a successor.
The border standoff in eastern Ladakh is also set to enter its third year, with a full resolution still not in sight even though the two sides have had partial success in disengaging rival soldiers from some friction areas on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), and talks are on between India and China to end a deadlock that has cast a shadow over the bilateral relationship.
