GoI on 17th Dec announced Lt General Bipin Rawat would be the new Army Chief, superseding two senior-most Lt Generals, Praveen Bakshi and P M Hariz.
The only other time the senior-most officer has not been appointed Chief was in 1983, when Lt Gen S K Sinha was overlooked for the post in favour of Gen A S Vaidya.
Lt Gen Rawat, who is currently Vice Chief of Army Staff, will take over as the 26th Chief after Gen Dalbir Singh retires on December 31.
Lt Gen Rawat is an Infantry officer, having been commissioned in the Fifth Battalion of the Eleven Gorkha Rifles.
Lt Gen Bakshi, who heads the Kolkata-headquartered Eastern Command, is from the Armoured Corps. The Armoured Corps and Infantry are both fighting arms.
Gen Shankar Roy Chowdhury was the last Armoured Corps officer to be Army Chief (1994-97).
Lt Gen Hariz, who is from the Mechanised Infantry, heads the Pune-headquartered Southern Command.
Commissioned in the Army in December 1978, Lt Gen Rawat commanded an Infantry battalion along the Line of Actual Control in the Eastern Sector, a 5 Sector Rashtriya Rifles, and 19 Infantry Division in the Kashmir Valley.
As Brigadier, he also commanded a multinational brigade in the UN peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he was twice awarded the Force Commander’s Commendation.
Prior to taking over as the Vice Chief, he was GOC-in-C, Southern Command, at Pune.
It has been a convention that the new Army chief is announced 60 days before the incumbent retires.
