Speaking to mediapersons, Mankotia, who heads the 75,000-men strong Ex-servicemen's League of Himachal Pradesh, said the Finance Ministry had turned down the Army's proposal to purchase sophisticated, light-weight bullet-proof vests citing high costs as the reason. Instead, he charged, the Ministry had asked the Army to continue using old-fashioned vests, each weighing 15 kg, which could by no means have been used in high-altitude battles like that in Kargil.

``Ultimately the country has ended up spending Rs 2,000 crore on Kargil and losing 410 young men and officers and leaving hundreds of others permanently disabled,'' Mankotia said. Such ``short-sighted'' defence planning, according to him, smacked of the utterlycasual attitude with which matters pertaining to India's security were treated.

Asserting that offence was the best form of defence, Mankotia also wondered what prevented the political leadership of the country from ordering the Army to cross the Line of Control (LoC) and destroy bases of infiltrators in Kargil. ``Why should we feel shy of crossing the LoC and allow ourselves to be dragged in battles where we are bound to incur heavy human loses?'' the former Army Major asked.

Fearing that the ensuing poll campaign would push aside all debate on the fallout of Kargil, Mankotia urged President K R Narayanan to ensure that officers responsible for the intelligence failure in Kargil and the high death toll of men during the operation were made to answer questions about their role. The President should ensure that nobody destroys evidence regarding this in the pre-election scenario to escape responsibility, he added. Urging the politicians not to use ``death as a tool to get votes'', Mankotia saidthis would be the most disrespectful gesture towards Kargil martyrs.

``Let us not indulge in politics of coffin, cremation and condolences,'' asserted Mankotia, who participated in the 1962 and 1971 wars before plunging into politics. Mankotia also asked the Government to ensure total transparency in the use of funds raised through public donations for victims of the Kargil conflict. The former Army Major claimed that funds raised after the 1962 war with China, though substantial, had failed to reach families of martyrs.He further alleged that many of the petrol pumps and gas agencies meant for dependents of martyrs were actually allocated to politicians, their relatives and power brokers.