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PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
NEW DELHI, AUG 1: In 1970, then prime minister Indira Gandhi's worst fear was that Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw would stage a coup and take over the reins of the country from her. This startling revelation was made by the 85-year-old former Army chief on Karan Thapar's programme Face-to-Face on BBC Television. In 1970, Mrs Gandhi's stock politically, was very low, Manekshaw explained, and he couldn't go anywhere without being asked whether he would actually take over. Even a US Diplomat had asked him at a party ``when are you taking over'', he remembered. Then one day, a worried Mrs Gandhi asked him to come to Parliament House and ``looked me straight into my eyes and said you are my problem,'' he said. Shaken up, Manekshaw, the hero of the 1971 Indo-Pak conflict, said ``I put my nose next to hers and said what do you think ?'' ``She said you can't. Do you think I am so incompetent (Manekshaw replied). I didn't mean that Sam. You wouldn't,'' he recalled Mrs Gandhi as having argued.
The former army chiefsaid he related a ``little jingle'' to the prime minister, ``you mind your own business and I'll mind mine. You kiss your own sweetheart and I'll kiss mine. I don't interfere politically as long as nobody interferes with me in the army''.
Asked if that set her fears at rest, he replied ``that's right''. Manekshaw said it was after the 1971 conflict that Mrs Gandhi elevated him to the rank of Field Marshal but did not offer him the job of Chief of Defence Staff to go with it. But she did offer him the post of High Commissioner in the UK and the office of Maharashtra governor both of which he declined, he said. On his equation with Mrs Gandhi, he said ``well, she and I got on well. She trusted me and I trusted her. I never kept anything back from her and she never kept anything from me''. He also revealed that he had problems with then defence minister V K Krishna Menon. The minister, he said, even ordered a court of inquiry to get him removed. Manekshaw said he was exonerated by the court of inquirycomprising three generals but denied promotion for 18 months.
``Then the Chinese came to my help. Krishna Menon was sacked...,'' he added.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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