House panel to probe 2012 media report about Army coup

BJP leader and a Rajya Sabha member G V L Narasimha Rao on Tuesday said that a parliamentary standing committee on defence has agreed to his “proposal” to start an investigation into “fake” media reports about an Army coup in 2012.

Referring to a latest report published in The Sunday Guardian on the episode, Rao, who is a member of the parliamentary standing committee on defence, said that “a false” story in media about Army coup in January 2012 were “planted” by “some senior Congress leaders and four Cabinet ministers” in the Manmohan Singh government under a conspiracy to “defame and subvert Indian.”

“This Congress party had not only indulged in wanton loot during the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) rule but they have also played havoc with the national security of this country. Hatched a conspiracy against the Indian Army,” he said while addressing a press conference here at the BJP headquarters.

He said that the chairman of the parliamentary standing committee Kalraj Mishra, a BJP MP, agreed to his proposal to initiate a probe into the episode as to how “such subversive attempts were made, who were the actors involved, what was the motive in the story.”

“I requested him (Mishra) to convene an emergency meeting of the standing committee on defence so that we can all the concerned persons to this committee. I also requested him to nominate some of members of the committee to meet Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, senior officials of the defence ministry and officials of Indian army in connection with the issue. He has agreed to my proposals,” Rao said.

While addressing the press conference, Rao posed some questions, describing them as “both political in nature and those requiring a criminal investigation,” asking if it was the Congress president “Rahul Gandhi's brain behind this dangerous conspiracy (to plant a false story about Army staging coup in 2012.”