Congress lacks will to fight Maoists: BJP

NEW DELHI - The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Thursday slammed the Congress, saying it looked a divided house lacking the “will power” to fight Maoist guerrillas.

“What is disturbing is the division in the Congress government over its fight against the Naxalites. Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh has criticised the home minister (P. Chidambaram). Former minister Mani Shankar Aiyar is also targeting the government and so is Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee,” BJP spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad told IANS outside parliament.

The BJP leader said the Congress betrayed “its lack of will power to fight the Naxals”.

Prasad said the opposition was deeply hurt because the government did not make a statement on its own in parliament, which resumed Thursday, over the Dantewada massacre in which 76 security personnel “laid their lives in Chhattisgarh fighting Naxalites (Maoists)”.

Leaders of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), led by the BJP, are demanding a debate and a statement from the government.

He said: “What these leaders don’t believe is that Maoists are a threat to our internal security.”

In an article published in a national daily, Digvijay Singh made scathing remarks against Chidambaram accusing him of being “extremely rigid once he makes up his mind”.

He said he “differed with (Chidambaram’s) strategy that does not take into consideration the people living in the affected area who ultimately matter”.

Aiyar at a conference Wednesday said Singh is “one lakh percent right”.