Congress' Kandahar?

The Congress party’s campaign against the BJP for releasing hostages in Kandahar hasn’t been blunted too much by the BJP’s argument that both Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh had endorsed the move at an all-party meeting. What is now pointed out, however, is that the Congress did a similar deal with the Naxals who, Singh has acknowledged, are the biggest internal security threat the country faces. In 2004, the Congress party in Andhra Pradesh entered into an informal understanding with the Naxals, including the Peoples’ War Group. After coming to power, the state government suspended its anti-Naxal operations and resumed a dialogue with Naxal leaders. The talks at Hyderabad were personally monitored by National Security Adviser M K Narayanan. However, when the talks failed, the top Naxal leadership was cornered by the special anti-Naxal forces in a jungle. For more than two hours, the Naxals were ringed by a police cordon, even as the police authorities waited for instructions from New Delhi. But when the instructions finally came, they were to allow the guerrilla leaders a safe passage to freedom.