PC calls Buddha,Soren,Nitish for another meet

n On February 9,the day Chidambaram was to meet the four CMs in Kolkata,Jharkhand Chief Minister Shibu Soren reported sick and had to be admitted to a local hospital. Interestingly,Soren was out of hospital the very same day and presided over a 90-minute Cabinet meeting the next day. His deputies — Raghuvar Das and Sudesh Mahato — attended the meeting and echoed Soren’s viewpoint that “rather than launching the offensive,accelerating the process of development in the rural areas would be a better proposition”.

In the last Lok Sabha elections,Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) supported jailed CPI (Maoist) zonal commander Kameshwar Baitha’s candidature. Baitha won the poll to become the first Maoist Lok Sabha member. In the last Assembly elections,JMM fielded four Maoists as its candidates.

Soren government’s soft stand towards the Naxals has put the brakes on launching the offensive against them. Although DGP Neyaz Ahmad had chalked out a blueprint for the operations,the Central Paramilitary Forces remained confined to their barracks. “Without the state government’s nod we can do little. Another problem is that there is little time to gear up for operation in March so that we can wind up before the onset of monsoon,” a paramilitary official said,requesting anonymity.

n Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar,too,skipped the Kolkata meeting and instead chose to send his Home Secretary and Director General of Police. In Patna,Kumar said Naxalism cannot be tackled with force. Bihar Home Secretary Amir Subhani also gave an insight into the state government’s soft Naxal stance when he said,“If Naxals offer talks,government may consider.” Defending his absence from the meeting,Kumar had said he had not been consulted before fixing the date.

Maintaining that Bihar is not as seriously affected by the Naxal challenge as some other states are,the Bihar CM has shown reluctance towards launching any major anti-Naxal operations. Kumar,in fact,has often made his stance clear. “We have nothing against any offensive by the Centre,but Bihar does not need any Naxal offensive,” he has been maintaining. The Bihar government has not started speedy trial against any Naxal leader,including Jehanabad jailbreak mastermind Ajay Kanu. With Assembly elections just eight months away,Nitish will not attempt any bravado against ultras even though records say 19 of 38 Bihar districts are Naxal-hit of which six are worst-hit.

Chidambaram is not only facing roadblocks from Chief Ministers of Opposition-ruled states but his Cabinet colleague and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee too. Her changing stand over Maoists continues to surprise the Centre. Mamata has been demanding withdrawal of the joint operation against Maoists in Lalgarh. She maintains that the ruling CPM was more dangerous than the Maoists. If Maoists are “killers” then the CPM are “murderers”,she’s been saying. The minister recently compelled the Cabinet not to specifically condemn the Maoist attack at Silda in West Bengal that killed 24 policemen in the President’s speech.

“If you condemn Maoists then you have to also condemn the murders by the CPM. How can you be certain that the Silda attack was done by Maoists? Maoists and Marxists are both sides of the same coin,” she reportedly told her Cabinet colleagues. Then again Mamata called the Maoists “cowards” and urged them to lay down arms and talk. Recently,Banerjee asked the Prime Minister to offer talks to Maoists underlining that the security offensive was not yielding anything.