Amit Shah reviews Left-Wing Extremism; stresses on need of 'uninterrupted development'

On Sunday, September 26, Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation Amit Shah convened a review meeting on 'Left-Wing extremism' at Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi. In the meeting, which had in attendance Chief Ministers of the states affected by Left-Wing extremism, the Union Home Minister and Minister of Cooperation asserted that the Centre government is committed to the development of Naxal affected areas. 

Chief Minister of Maharashtra Uddhav Thackeray, Nitish Kumar, the Bihar Chief Minister, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao, Naveen Patnaik, the Chief Minister of Odisha and Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan were present in the meeting. However, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister gave it a miss and was represented by Chhattisgarh Chief Secretary Amitabh Jain and Director General of Police (DGP) DM Awasthi.  

Full development not possible until we get rid of Left-Wing extremism

After the meeting, in a statement, the Central government pointed out that the combined efforts of the Centre and the states have yielded results in combating Left-Wing extremism. "In decades of fighting, we have reached a point where the death toll is less than 200 for the first time, and this is a shared and great achievement for all of us," the government said. Underlining the need of continuing this fight, the government pointed out that unless the lingering problem of Left-Wing extremism is dealt with, the full development of the country and the states affected by it is not possible.

The government in the released statement also extended an invitation to the Left-Wing extremists who want to give up arms and become a part of democracy. "But those who take up arms and hurt innocent people and the police, responded in the same way," the government added. 

Calling lack of development in six decades after Independence the root cause of dissatisfaction, the Central government highlighted that now development has started taking place, and Naxalites have also understood that innocent people will not be misled by them. "It is very important to continue uninterrupted development at a fast pace. The fight against a problem that has killed more than 16,000 civilians in the last 40 years has now come to an end and needs to be accelerated and made decisive," it said.

It is pertinent to mention here that recently the Government of India has been successful in getting insurgent groups to surrender their arms, especially in the North East. 

Image: @AmitShah/Twitter/PTI