Former vice chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Krishna Singh was named the candidate by Prashant Kishor's Jan Suraaj Party for bypoll to Tarari assembly seat in Bihar on Wednesday.
Kishor said that in a day or two, the infant party will announce candidates for three other seats for which by-polls are to be held next month, but asserting that the candidature of Lt. Gen Sinha, "the only vice chief of army staff from Bihar except late S K Sinha", is a matter of pride for Tarari which has become "synonymous with illegal sand-mining and other mafia".
Interestingly, bypoll has become unavoidable for the seat in Bhojpur district as CPI (ML) leader Sudama Prasad's party, a constituent of the opposition INDIA bloc, has been elected to Lok Sabha.
Lt. Gen. Singh speaking on the occasion said he was "not happy" with the Agniveer scheme which had incidentally met with stiff opposition when it was rolled out a couple of years ago.
The former army vice chief felt that a four years' contract would come in the way of "regimentation, which denotes a jawans' devotion to the regiment in which he spends a lifetime of service to the nation".
"We must learn from our experience in Galwan where the Chinese troops had better technical knowhow but were done in for want of spirit," said Singh, who had been living in the Delhi-NCR region since 2013 after retirement.
"My children have settled abroad and my wife is no more. I am quitting a comfortable life just for my love for Tarari, the place to which I belong. The respect I get there for having served in the army is something I never saw in Delhi or Noida, he added.".
Responding to a query, Lt Gen Singh said, "I may not be a great fan of Agniveer but, still, I will never advise youngsters to not think of the army as a career choice. In four years, a jawan learns enough skills to build a life for oneself. Also, policies do change. In future, the government may amend the scheme on the lines of the Short Service Commission."
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