Expressing gratitude towards the BJP leadership, Bhadauria said his most fulfilling years of service in the IAF were during the tenure of the BJP-led govt. Having retired in 2021, he lauded the past 8-10 years as a “golden period”, commending the initiatives undertaken by the Modi administration to enhance self-reliance and modernise the armed forces.He highlighted that his new role presented an opportunity for him to contribute to the nation’s development and progress.
“I thank the party leadership for giving me this opportunity to contribute to nation-building once again. I served the IAF for more than four decades, but the best time of my service was the last eight years under the leadership of the BJP govt. The tough steps taken by this govt to empower and modernise our armed forces and make them self-reliant have not only given rise to a new capability in the forces but also given them a new confidence,” he said.
Bhadauria was IAF chief from Sept 2019 to Sept 2021. He won the coveted ‘Sword of Honour’ at the National Defence Academy, flew indigenous Tejas fighter prototypes as a young test pilot and later led commercial negotiations for the Rs 59,000-crore deal for 36 French Rafale jets in Sept 2016 as IAF deputy chief, which emerged as a major bone of contention between BJP and Congress in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
Bhadauria, along with former MP from Tirupati Varaprasad Rao Velagapalli from YSRCP, were inducted into the party by BJP general secretary Vinod Tawde and Union minister Anurag Thakur at the party headquarters in New Delhi.
According to BJP sources, Bhadauria is being considered for an LS seat in Uttar Pradesh while Velagapalli has been named from the Tirupati seat.
The development came as V K Singh said he was opting out of electoral politics. Later in the day, he was replaced for the Ghaziabad LS seat by MLA Atul Garg.
Singh, a third-generation officer of the Rajput Regiment who had topped both the commando course at the Infantry School in Mhow and the Rangers combat-leadership programme at Fort Benning in US as a subaltern, was Army chief from April 2010 to May 2012. He was the first serving military chief to controversially drag the govt (UPA-2) to court over his date of birth because he believed he had been wronged by the system and victimised by earlier Army chiefs Generals J J Singh and Deepak Kapoor. There were also reports of the UPA-2 govt being “spooked” by the unauthorised movement of two Army units towards New Delhi in Jan 2012.
