Nitish slams Centre for lack of support to fight Naxalism

Attacking the central government, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said it was not providing adequate support to his state for tackling naxalism which he warned could not be defeated by "enforcement action alone"See special

Attacking the central government, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday said it was not providing adequate support to his state for tackling naxalism which he warned could not be defeated by "enforcement action alone".

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He also questioned the Planning Commission's integrated action plan for development of naxal-affected areas, saying it covered only 35 of the 83 such districts and the rest would remain backward, thus hampering efforts to solve the problem.

Addressing a meeting of Naxal-affected states convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here, Kumar underlined that "naxal elements are a part of our society even though they have been misled into following the path of violence."

He pressed for an "integrated approach" to deal with the problem and said "Enforcement action alone leads to wider alienation, making heroes out of the leaders of the extremist organisations and leads to only symptomatic treatment, leaving the underlined disease to reappear in a more virulent form."

Kumar said Left-wing extremism could be tackled through sustained development but this needs the Centre's supportive approach to states like Bihar.

"It cannot be disputed that intensive all-round development is the final solution for the Left-wing extremism problem," he noted.

On Planning Commission's integrated action plan for carrying out developmental work in 35 Naxal-affected districts, he said, "It is recognised that there are 83 Left-wing extremism affected districts all over India. It is not clear as to why only 35 districts have been selected" for integrated development.

"As the remaining 48 districts will continue to remain backward, the problem cannot be solved by leaving the majority of the districts uncovered," Kumar said.

The Chief Minister complained that despite concerns expressed by his government over the Naxal situation and demands for more Central Paramilitary Forces (CPMF), his state has "not received the requisite support from the Central government."

"There has been no change in the number of CPMF companies deployed in Bihar over the last several years," he said, adding that after the last such meeting in October 2009, the number of CPMF was increased in other states but Bihar "did not get a single additional company".

The number of CPMF training establishments in the state should also be increased, he said.