Amit Shah vows to uproot Naxalism

New Delhi: The Centre and the Naxalism-affected states on Monday resolved to jointly fight the Left Wing extremism, with home minister Amit Shah declaring that the Maoists are against the idea of democracy and will be uprooted, officials said.

Chief ministers Nitish Kumar (Bihar), Naveen Patnaik (Odisha), Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), Kamal Nath (Madhya Pradesh), Raghubar Das (Jharkhand), Bhupesh Baghel (Chhattisgarh) and Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy (Andhra Pradesh), besides top police and civil officials of 10 Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-affected states, attended the meeting where ongoing operations against Naxals and development initiatives were reviewed.

Major focus on infrastructure development with special focus on mobile penetration and road connectivity will be the key initiatives in Naxal-infested areas across the country in the coming days.

Sources said that while the home minister expressed satisfaction over the prevailing security situation in the Naxal-dominated areas, he stressed on the need for a co-ordinated approach between different states and security agencies to go in for a final push to eliminate the Naxal violence. The home minister, however, laid special emphasis on development work in these regions, particularly on mobile and road connectivity, as he was of the view that infrastructure development could play a critical role apart from security operations in containing Naxal violence.

The home minister also assured all states of all possible assistance from Centre on issues like forest and land rights to tribals living in dense jungles and remote areas where Naxals have a stronghold.

Naxal violence graph has shown a considerable drop ever since Narendra Modi led NDA Government was voted to power in 2014 on all possible parameters. While a total of 8,782 incidents of Naxal violence were reported between 2009-13, these dropped by a whopping more than 43 per cent to 4,969 during NDA regime in 2014-18. Similarly, while 3,326 casualties including those of security personnel were reported in 2009-13 these to showed a sharp decline to 1,321, a drop of more than 60 per cent.  Security forces, too, have had major success in containing Naxal activities to only 60 districts across the country by end of last year.  Even in these districts, only 10 of them, mostly in Chhattisgarh, have reported more than half of violent incidents involving the Maoists.

Even though Centre has already allocated `1,000 crore for infrastructure development in Naxal infested States as part of its National Policy and Action Plan, Mr Shah assured the States that if required the central assistance could be increased even further.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityananth claimed that Naxal violence was fully under control in his state.