After the Vice Chief of Army Staff Lt Gen Bipin Rawat, briefed the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence on surgical strikes, it is now the turn of another parliamentary panel dealing with external affairs, which had sought briefing from military and foreign office officials.
Government is also believed to have conceded the demand by the panel chief Shahsi Tharoor. Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who is also a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs is scheduled to attend the meeting on Tuesday.
The panel will be briefed on Indo-Pak relations with specific reference to recent surgical strikes. "Briefing by the foreign secretary, home secretary, defence secretary and Director General of Military Operations on the subject 'Indo-Pak relations with specific reference to surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC)'," a notice regarding the October 18 meeting issued by the Lok Sabha secretariat says. The meeting assumes significance as the government had earlier expressed reservation to send any military official to brief the Standing Committee on Defence. But later relented to send the Vice Chief of Army Staff.
Since the committee under Tharoor has summoned the Foreign, Defence and Home secretaries, but also Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt. General Ranbir Singh who had announced the success of the surgical strikes, the members will, therefore, get an opportunity to probe the DGMO on the operations. Tharoor has been careful not to go out of his committee's brief to limit itself to discuss the matters concerning the foreign relations. His concern is that the cross-line of control surgical strikes have further spoiled the strained relations between the two neighbours with the nuclear weapons and hence the committee must study the implications.
Last Friday, the Vice Chief of Army Staff made a short statement before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence. But no questions were allowed. Conforming about the briefing, chairman of the panel, Maj Gen (retd) BC Khanduri said the army general had come to brief the Member of Parlaiments s, but no sensitive operational details were shared in the meeting. Khanduri said the agenda had included only a briefing and a question and answer session was not possible as details of the strike are top secret and cannot be revealed.
The agenda for the committee's briefing had originally been described as "Briefing by the representatives of the Ministry of Defence on surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC)". Later, it was changed to the briefing by the Ministry of Law and Justice, Election Commission and Ministry of Defence on e-voting by defence personnel.
The briefing by the Army officer came after complaints from the Congress that the agenda of the meeting was changed at the last moment and briefing on surgical strikes was cancelled. Sources said the issue was also raised at the beginning of the meeting by Congress members, but committee chairman Khanduri said that it might have been a 'miscommunication'
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