Over three months have passed since Manohar Parrikar left South Block for Goa, but he still seems to relish the opportunity to position himself on the national stage that had been provided when heading the defence ministry.

Yet, while trying to shed the impression of never being particularly competent at the Centre, he has thrown the proverbial spanner into the works by claiming a personal role in the much-publicised surgical strikes” across the LOC last September.

While that action, which the Indian defence establishment maintained was highly successful, was projected as a befitting response to the fidayeen raid on the Army camp in Uri a few weeks earlier, the former defence minister said that the planning for it had been initiated months earlier.

Which leaves unanswered the question if a cross-border counter-strike had been planned and “approved” earlier, why was it not conducted immediately after IAF Pathankot was subjected to a militant foray?

The Army, certainly the Director-General of Military Operations at that time (who popularised the term “surgical strikes” that ruling party politicians have feasted upon) had been categorical that the strikes were targeted at demolishing the “launch pads” from which militants based their raids in the Valley (for which a new weapons-locating radar was deployed, the ex-defence minister has disclosed), followed immediate, and specific “actionable intelligence”.

So while an “in principle” decision on striking across the LOC might have been taken earlier, Parrikar is over-stretching a point when petting himself on the back. His belated “claim” actually bolsters the charge that the government exploited a military action for political gain.

The hangover persists. The former defence minister also injects a degree of the ridiculous into military planning when he claims a provocative question from the media “triggered” the decision to counter-strike across the LOC. Are military operations, with the potential for international ramifications, undertaken only to silence a chirpy journalist who asked why an anti-terror mission near the Myanmar border could not be replicated across the LOC? Is that the norm ushered in by this government?

If so, that might explain some of the recent belligerent comments from the Army leadership that have had a “fall-out”, both domestically and in Beijing too. Not a particularly elevating development, there are limits to the “gung-ho”, even if it pays off electorally.

Narendra Modi had waited quite a while before appointing a defence minister, Parrikar only made a few “noises” during his comparatively short tenure. Arun Jaitley has been saddled with an onerous “additional charge” yet again. With “temperatures rising” on the Tibet-Bhutan-India trijuncion, and Beijing demanding Indian troops pull back, the defence ministry needs full-time attention ~ Jaitley has his hands full implementing GST.

From which hat will the PM pull out a defence-rabbit?