Lieutenant General Upendra Dwivedi, who is in charge of the Northern Army, will replace Lieutenant General MV Suchindra Kumar as the army’s vice chief on February 15. This was confirmed by people familiar with the situation on Monday.
Officials who did not want to be named said that the two generals will switch jobs next week, with Kumar taking over as General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Northern Command in Udhampur.
When General Manoj Pande leaves on May 31, 2024, Dwivedi will be the most senior general and the clear favorite to become army chief. He went to Sainik School, Rewa, the National Defence Academy, and the Indian Military Academy.
He became in charge of the very important Northern Command in February 2022.
Dwivedi has been a deputy chief in the Army Headquarters, the general officer in charge of the 9 Corps headquarters in Yol, and the director general of infantry in the past. In December 1984, he was made a captain in the 18th Battalion of the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles.
In the north, the Northern Command is in charge of protecting the borders with Pakistan and China. It is also the main hub for actions against terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.
Kumar takes over the Northern Command at a time when India and China have been in a long-lasting military standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh since May 2020. Talks to end the crisis at the border are still going on, but it doesn’t look like they will be successful. Along the Ladakh section of the LoC, things are “stable, yet sensitive,” Pande said in January.
The Indian and Chinese armies still have tens of thousands of troops and modern weapons in the Ladakh theater, even though they have been pulled out of Galwan Valley, Pangong Tso, Gogra (PP-17A), and Hot Springs (PP-15) four times. There have been many talks between the Indian and Chinese forces, but the issues at Depsang and Demchok are still being talked about.
