NEW DELHI: Eastern Command chief Lt Gen Praveen Bakshi met defence minister Manohar Parrikar on Wednesday afternoon, amid indications the senior officer is likely to resign after the government’s decision that Lt Gen Bipin Rawat would supersede him to become the next Army chief on December 31.The defence ministry was only ready to say that Lt Gen Bakshi, who was commissioned into the armoured corps in December 1977, had sought the meeting with Parrikar and that it “was a courtesy call that lasted for 15-20 minutes”.Lt Gen Bakshi also met Army chief Gen Dalbir Singh Suhag, who retires on December 31, down the corridor from Parrikar’s office on the first floor of South Block. This, too, was described as “a normal courtesy call” but could not detract from the raging controversy over the government’s decision to junk the long-established seniority principle in the appointment of military chiefs in India.Though Lt Gen Bakshi has himself chosen not to speak about what he intends to do in the run-up to December 31, sources say he is likely to put in his papers because he feels his seniority (he is one year senior to Lt-Gen Rawat), “operational acumen and blemish-less career” has been ignored by the government.As earlier reported by TOI, the government on December 17 had cited the vast operational experience in counter-insurgency and high-altitude warfare of Lt Gen Rawat, who belongs to the infantry’s Gorkha Rifles, to underscore his “merit and suitability” to take over the reins of the 1.3-million strong Army. While doing so, the government also ignored the claim of Southern Command chief Lt Gen P M Hariz (mechanized infantry), who is six months senior to Lt-Gen Rawat.If Lt Gen Bakshi had been promoted as the chief, he would have become the second armoured corps officer since Gen Shankar Roy Chowdhury in the late-1990s to command the force. There have of course been other armoured corps officers who earlier became Army chiefs like Generals B C Joshi, V N Sharma and A S Vaidya, but six of the last eight chiefs have been from the infantry, with the other two being from the artillery.If Lt Gen Bakshi indeed resigns (he can continue in service till he turns 60 in July 2017), he will emulate Lt Gen S K Sinha, who had done so after Indira Gandhi superseded him to appoint Gen A S Vaidya as the Army chief in 1983. Ironically, a Lt Gen from the infantry, and that too from the Gorkha Rifles (Sinha), had then been superseded by an armoured corps officer (Vaidya).The infantry is the biggest of the three main combat arms of the Army, with the other two being the mechanised forces (armoured corps and mechanized infantry) and artillery. “Obviously, there are more infantry officers in the general cadre. Moreover, infantry officers have prolonged deployments in counter-insurgency operations as well as along the borders with Pakistan and China,” said a senior officer.