Manohar Parrikar’s penchant for oh-so-serious-quips make him the poster child of the ‘Oooops! I did it again’ moment. This time social media outrage follows this statement: ‘ Army’s importance has diminished due to lack of wars for the last 40-50 years’. Ouch.

While some are questioning the Defence Minister’s intelligence quotient there are others who feel this uncalled for chest thumping unnecessary. Without, actually having, of course, known the context. #JustAReminder: Half-baked statements without context are super dangerous.

“I have written to many chief ministers (over defence matters). Some have acted on it and at many places, it (response) has ended. The primary reason for this is that we have not been to war for 40-50 years. I don’t mean to say that we should go to war. I mean to say that without war, the Army’s importance has diminished,” he said at a conference in Jaipur on challenges and solutions regarding border safety.

The public, obviously, adores the way he thinks. They still don’t buy his statement, calling the army a diminished entity.

From calling him a warmonger to questioning his intelligence in not very polite terms, Twitter went berserk. We present some gems:

Parrikar is the same person who when asked whether Pakistan ‘ ko mirchi lag gayi ‘ with his remark on using terrorists against terrorists and he responded, “I will not go into what Pakistan feels about that but mirchi , woh bhi Andhra ki lagi hai (It has been stung by Andhra chillies).”

Manohar continues being baffled by the slit eyes on *hold your breath*… Ganesha idols. “I found that nowadays the eyes are becoming smaller and smaller. One day, I finally turned around the statue and found Made in China written on it,” he said.

Source: DNA

All things apart, we do wish Parrikar would say something useful about the #OneRankOnePension debate.

FYI: Parrikar, however, clarified that he was not endorsing wars. He was just calling the army obsolete. In not so many words.