Naxalism could not form a base in West Bengal for 30 years since its inception due to the political battle waged by the organised Left, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury has said.
Naxalism could not form a base in West Bengal for 30 years since its inception due to the political battle waged by the organised Left, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury has said.
"Please remember that Naxalbari is a village in West Bengal from where this ultra-Left (Naxal) deviation took place. And for 30 years they could not come back to West Bengal only because of the fight we had put up," he told Karan Thapar on his programme 'Devil's Advocate'.
He charged the Trinamool Congress with bringing them back, saying "they were imported into West Bengal by our political opponents ... in order to be used against us."
Yechury said the Trinamool Congress, which was "sitting in the Central government", wanted to fight the Left "using the Maoists and gave them shelter, gave them patronage. They were brought in from across the border (of the state)".
Defending the release of some tribal women in exchange for a police officer who was held captive by the Maoists, he said they were "hapless tribal women and not hardened Maoists". The senior Marxist leader said the CPI(M)'s fight against the ultra-Left dated back to the late 1960s and early 1970s when over a thousand of its cadres were killed.
"We are the ones who have lost the maximum number of people in the fight against the Maoists," he said.
To questions as to why the state government was failing to control the Maoists, Yechury said their activities were primarily concentrated in three districts of West Bengal bordering Jharkhand or Orissa.
In this context, the CPI(M) leader gave the example of Veerappan, saying the forest brigand operated for two decades in the jungles of Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
"Could you catch him? ... Unless the forces of all the three states work together, it is not possible. That is how Veerappan was caught and this is what is required now," he said.
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