The home ministry seems to have failed in achieving complete unanimity on the Centre-state approach towards the Naxal problem. While West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was conspicuous by his absence at the Naxal meet of chief ministers of seven Naxal-hit states convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
on Wednesday, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar criticised the Centre’s approach in tackling the Naxal menace saying a crackdown is turning the rebels into heroes before the people. In his speech, which was tabled, not read out, at the meeting, he also attacked the home ministry for not providing requisite support to his state for tackling the menace.
Conceding that his efforts proved futile at bringing Mr Bhattacharjee to the discussion table, home minister P. Chidambaram said, “I had written to him. When he declined I wrote again but he said he was pre-occupied.” Differences with Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar also became apparent when Mr Chidambaram said, “I had invited the Bihar chief minister to Delhi to discuss the deployment but that meeting is still pending.” The home minister hoped that Mr Kumar would approach him soon to discuss the issue. It may be recalled that Mr Chidamb-aram’s remarks that the “buck stops with the chief minister’’ had irked the West Bengal chief minister.
Mr Chidambaram’s efforts to garner states’ support in the anti-Naxal operations also did not get the desired response when the Bihar CM skipped the chief ministers’ meet convened by the home minister during his visit to Kolkata earlier this year.
Pitting the Bihar government’s approach against the Centre’s anti-Naxal strategy, Mr Kumar said, “My views on how to resolve this may be, however, at variance with the perception of some of my other friends present here... Enforcement action alone leads to wider alienation, making heroes out of the leaders of the extremist organizations and leads to only symptomatic treatment leaving the underlying disease to reappear in a more virulent form.”
Commending his government’s flagship programmes aimed at development of extremist-affected areas, Mr Kumar said that Bihar has not reported any instances of human rights violations.
Accusing the Centre of not helping his state in fighting the rebels, Mr Kumar said,
“Bihar has been suffering continuously due to the indifferent and unsympathetic attitude of the ministries concerned in government of India .” He said that Bihar has not received the requisite support from Central government.