Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 26
Resolving to jointly fight Left wing extremism (LWE) with the affected states, Union Home Minister Amit Shah today declared that the menace is against the very idea of democracy and should be completely uprooted at any cost.
Chairing a meeting of the Chief Ministers of Naxal-affected states, Shah said, “Left wing extremism has no place in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of ‘New India’ and a Centre-State synergy is imperative to wipe out LWE from the country.” He also stressed the need to check flow of funds to LWE outfits and highlighted that incidences of violence have come down from 2,258 in 2009 to 833 in 2018.
Chief Ministers Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha), Yogi Adityanath (UP), Kamal Nath (Madhya Pradesh), Raghubar Das (Jharkhand), Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh) and YS Jaganmohan Reddy (Andhra Pradesh), besides top police and civil officials of 10 LWE-hit states, attended the meeting where ongoing operations against Naxals and development initiatives were reviewed.
In a statement after the meeting, the Ministry of Home Affairs said the state governments and the Centre resolved to fight the Maoist menace jointly.
Later, Shah tweeted, “Had a very fruitful meeting with the CMs of the LWE affected states. Discussed several issues related to the security & development of these states.”
Addressing the meeting, Bihar CM Kumar said the fight against LWE was a joint responsibility of the Centre as well as the states and flagged the need for a change in the existing policy which puts the entire financial burden of deployment of central forces on the state governments concerned.
Chhattisgarh CM Baghel demanded more funds from the Centre to combat the menace in the state and said his government is determined to eliminate the menace through development and generating trust among the people.
Uttar Pradesh CM Adityanath said Naxal activities are fully under control in the state and the development was reaching the affected areas. Jharkhand CM Raghubar Das said several top Naxal leaders have surrendered and a rehabilitation policy was in place to help them join the mainstream.
The Madhya Pradesh CM asked the Centre to include three more districts of the state under left wing extremism-affected category and sought more special battalions for Naxal-hit areas.
Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Narendra Singh Tomar, Arjun Munda and Mahendra Nath Pandey joined the meeting later in the day and discussed with the CMs issues concerning roads, telecommunication, agriculture and others.
from The Tribune https://ift.tt/30D5uVp
via Today’s News Headlines
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