Anand Sharma requests Rajnath Singh not to shift ARTRAC from Shimla

Deputy Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma has written to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh opposing the proposed shifting of the Army Training Command Headquarters of (ARTRAC HQ) from Shimla to Meerut.

In a two-page letter to the Defence Minister Singh, Congress leader Anand Sharma Wednesday said that the ARTRAC HQ is being shifted from Shimla to Meerut without any justification.

He requested the defence minister to cancel the proposal.

"In view of the popular demand and opinion of senior Army officers, including retired service chiefs and strategic experts, I seek your urgent intervention to retain the ARTRAC HQ in Shimla," he said in the letter.

Shimla has been a strategic location for the Indian Army for almost 150 years and was the headquarters of the Indian armed forces even during the British period, he added.

After India's Independence, the Western Command headquarters was located in Shimla during Indo-Pak wars in 1948, 1965 and 1971 as well as the Sino-India war of .