Party believes Maoists can only be countered through resistance at ground level.
The BJP on Thursday said Maoist menace could be countered only through resistance at the ground level and announced reorganization of Salwa Judum.
The statement came after BJP president Rajnath Singh and Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh visited the family of Mahendra Karma, the brain behind Salwa Judum who was killed in the Maoist attack on Saturday.
The BJP leaders feel they share with Karma the commitment to fight Maoists, and that Salwa Judum was the binding factor between them. BJP spokesman Jagat Prakash Nadda said the two leaders assured Karma’s family that security will be extended to them.
The family also agreed with the BJP leaders the need to fight Maoists with greater determination now.
Asked if the BJP was supportive of Salwa Judum despite the Supreme Court’s adverse remarks against it, Nadda said Raman Singh had taken note of the objections and Salwa Judum would be reorganised in accordance with the guidelines indicated by the apex court.
Nadda, who is also the BJP general secretary in charge of Chhattisgarh, said Raman Singh had accepted moral responsibility for the Saturday killing of Congress leaders, and that the judicial inquiry would be fair and free. Action would be taken against erring officials, he added.
He also argued that the Maoist menace was now confined to Bastar, and that even there it did not have the support of the local people. He said the attackers were all speaking in Telugu, indicating that they came from Andhra Pradesh. He said they spoke in Telugu to their leader over phone, and after the attack slipped into Odisha.
Observing that the Maoist menace is a national issue that needed inter-state coordination, besides “consistent national support”, Nadda said it was not the time to indulge in blame game. He said prime minister Manmohan Singh and home minister Sushilkumar Shinde were supportive of the Raman Singh government in the fight against Maoists, but on the other hand Congress leaders were trying to blame the BJP for what is essentially a national problem.
The BJP wants to reiterate its unrelenting anti-Maoist position, and it sees this as principled politics which would benefit the electoral fortunes of the party as well. The party is rebutting the Congress charge that it is hobnobbing with the Maoists to isolate the Congress in the state.
CONTROVERSIAL OPTION
Salwa Judum is either a citizens’ militia or a private army, depending on the viewpoint. The Supreme Court has objected to it because the government was arming people and that it sets a wrong and dangerous precedent.
Mahendra Karma, the Congress leader killed in the ambush on Saturday, is seen as the man who felt the need to organise the villagers to fight Maoists, and chief minister Raman Singh made it his own. Karma and Singh, despite belonging to rival parties, were one on the issue of Salwa Judum.
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