Not Asked to Resign, Haven't Offered Either: General VK Singh on Pak Day Controversy

New Delhi:

General VK Singh claimed today "I have not offered to resign, nor was I asked to" after igniting a controversy by tweeting about "disgust" and "duty" after attending a reception last night hosted by Pakistani High Commissioner Abdul Basit.

"There was nothing different this year about the event," General Singh said, stressing that it is standard practice for Kashmiri separatists to be invited to the annual Pakistan Day celebration, just as it is the norm, he said, for the Minister of State for External Affairs to attend the yearly dinner.

General Singh said his tweets were not undermining of the government that deputed him to attend the reception; he said he was targeting sections of the media that tried to portray the dinner as "a nationalistic event" and suggested that his attendance would demoralise the army he led till recently.

Government sources told NDTV last night that the retired general's tweets were being seen as an embarrassment for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and that the minister would be ordered to clarify his remarks.

"The optics of a former army chief attending the event" were what made this year's reception different, General Singh said, while affirming his allegiance to his party and the Prime Minister.

His attendance at last night's dinner for Pakistan's Republic Day was cleared by the government after Mr Basit created a somewhat awkward situation by telling reporters that the Indian government "did not seem to have any objections" to his invite to Kashmiri separatist leaders.

A sharply-worded statement from the Foreign Ministry asked him not to make assumptions. "There should be no scope for misunderstanding or misrepresenting India's position on the role of the so- called Hurriyat.  Let me reiterate there are only two parties and there is no place for a third party in resolution of India-Pakistan issues," said ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin.