By IANS,
New Delhi: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh Tuesday said an integrated action plan should be worked out to tackle Maoists and stressed that it was important to win the battle against the guerrillas for the sake of development.
“This is a battle of development. We are not feeling troubled. We have to win this battle,” Raman Singh said while speaking at a session on ‘Democracy, Development and Extremism’ at a conference organised by the Jagran Forum here.
He said his government has taken several steps to usher development in the Maoist-affected areas of his state.
Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, comprising five districts — Dantewada, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Bastar and Kanker — has been the nerve centre of Maoist militancy since the late 1980s.
Maoists carried out the biggest ever attack in their nearly four decade-old violent movement April 6 in Dantewada district and massacred 76 security personnel.
Singh said that the Bastar region had been ignored in terms of development for over five decades.
“Roads were not built and electricity not provided to the villages in the region in the name of preserving tribal culture,” he said.
The chief minister said Maoists collected ransom, brutally murdered villagers and burnt schools and government offices in the region.
Terming Salwa Judum as a movement of tribals against the excesses of Maoists, Singh said he gave it his full support.
“No political party could have started this movement. It is a self-motivated response and will be so. AK-47 (of Maoists) is being opposed by bow and arrow (of the tribals). They (tribals) will find a way,” he said.
Singh said there was no exploitation of tribals in Bastar and therefore there was no ground for a “people’s revolution” as propagated by the Maoists. He said no land had yet been given to big private sector companies to set up factories in tribal areas.
The day-long conference on ‘Democracy: Challenges of Consensus Building in India’ was attended by several senior political leaders.