The Naxalites have stubbornly refused to lay down arms as a precondition for beginning a dialogue with the West Bengal government.
In response to the call given by Union Home Minister P Chidambaram to the Naxalites to lay down their arms and come to the negotiation table, one of their top leaders, Koteswar Rao alias Kishenji, has proposed to have a ceasefire.
In an interview to a local TV channel, he ruled out the possibility of laying down arms. “The question of laying down arms does not arise at all. It is against our principle,” Kishenji said. However, aware that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was planning a major offensive against them across several states, he offered to have a ceasefire to prepare the ground for such dialogue with the state.
Yesterday, Mamata Banerjee, the leader of the state’s main Opposition Trinamool Congress and a Cabinet minister in the UPA, said the Centre should initiate talks with the Naxalites and “eminent people” should be asked to start the process. But no immediate reaction to that was heard from the Naxalites.
Like the Union government, the CPI(M)-led state government is also of the opinion that the Naxalites could be engaged for a dialogue once they lay down the arms. But Banerjee was insistent that instead of going for a crackdown, the Centre should immediately initiate the process for a dialogue with them.
While the Trinamool chief is being seen to be repeatedly condemning the politics of violence, her position vis-à-vis the Naxalites of Maoist brand has been a little ambiguous. She has been denying any presence of Naxalites either in Nandigram or Lalgarh, and critical of the joint police operation in Lalgarh.
Last month Nishikanta Mondal, one of the Trinamool leaders in Nandigram, was murdered by the Naxalites and the act was later owned up by them. Yet, Banerjee refused to take note of that and continued to claim it as an act by the CPI(M).
Now, her sudden positioning as an interlocutor between the Naxalites and the Centre raises certain questions in the political circles. A Leftist political leader observes that Banerjee is not comfortable to the idea that Naxalites are steadily expanding their influence in the state and occupying space in the anti-CPI(M) sphere.
She cannot allow the growth of a parallel centre of power in the same anti-CPI(M) political space.
He felt that was the reason she has been vehemently denying any presence of the Naxalites in both Nandigram and Lalgarh despite evidences to the contrary. Second, the imminent crackdown by the Centre on the Naxalites made Mamata a party to that. As Kishenji pointed out earlier that Mamata being a member of the cabinet never raised her voice in protest to the move. Mamata's suggestion for a talk could be viewed as an attempt to deflect the charge made by the Naxalites. (EOM)
