Check context with Army Chief, don't politicise it: VK Singh

New Delhi: Union minister of state for road transport and highways and former Army chief General (retired) VK Singh on Friday defended Army Chief General Bipin Rawat for his comments on violence during recent protests against the new citizenship law, and urged the Opposition to not politicise everything.

Singh said there was nothing political in asking students to not cause violence and arson. “...the opposition can turn anything into a controversy. Ask him (General Rawat) what he meant. I don’t see any politics in it. If I tell students 'don’t unnecessarily damage property', is it politics? Cross-check with the Army Chief and in what context he might have said it,” he told a news agency.

“If he (General Rawat) had given advice to students to not indulge in arson, it is not a bad thing. Don’t know what is so wrong in it?” Singh added. Singh’s statement came after General Rawat criticised the violence in Delhi on Thursday. Rawat had said that leaders who “are leading masses of crowds to carry out arson and violence in our cities and towns - this is not leadership.”