By IANS,
Singur/Kolkata: Hardening her stand on the Maoists, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Monday asked them to choose between talks and the politics of killings, and said people will give a befitting reply to their violent methods.
However, Banerjee’s outburst against the left wing ultras drew caustic comments from the Left Front, with Leader of Opposition Surya Kanta Mishra accusing her of double standards and saying that the monster that she has created was now attacking her.
Addressing a rally in this rural belt of Hooghly district, Banerjee threw a challenge to the Maoists, saying her regime would not be cowed down by threats and violence.
“Our development programmes have unnerved them. That’s why they are killing people. They are cowards. If they have guts, they should come out in the open and fight. People will give them a befitting reply,” she said.
In a stern warning, Banerjee said the ultras would have to decide whether they wanted talks or would continue their politics of killing. “Who has given you the right to kill? If you want to sit for negotiations do so. But you cannot have both. You have to choose one”.
Ridiculing Maoist sympathisers who raise their voice against human rights violations, she said: “They ask why should Maoists be in jail? Why should they be given third degree? I don’t believe in third degree torture. But I ask them – will there be human rights only for Maoists? What about their victims who they brutally kill by tying them up?”
Banerjee, who had been favouring a negotiated solution to the Maoist problem ever since she came to power, changed her stand after a series of killings by the ultras since last August. On Sunday night, two people including Jaharkhand Janmukti Morcha leader Babu Bose was shot dead by the rebels in West Midnapore district.
But CPI-M leader Mishra said the chief minister had not learnt from her “mistakes”.
“We welcome the chief minister’s comment that she has been cheated and is ashamed, but we think that she is still not learning from her mistakes,” Mishra told reporters.
He said the CPI-M had all along been saying that the Maoists would not stop by attacking the Left’s cadre but target others too.
In a dig at the chief minister, he said her comment that the security forces did not need to wait for her instructions was funny.
“There is no minister in the government that can do anything without her instructions,” he said, adding she should apologise for having earlier asked for the withdrawal of the joint forces.