Mamata focuses on Maoist-hit areas ahead of assembly poll

KOLKATA - Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Wednesday said that her party plans to undertake a trust building exercise in West Bengal’s Maoist-affected areas ahead of next year’s assembly election.

She said the party also planned to divide the state into three zones to smoothly carry out ground work ahead of the assembly poll.

The state shall be divided into three zones - red, yellow and green - so that party workers can work smoothly and systematically in these areas, she said.

The red belt will include the areas affected by Left-wing extremists and is going to be top priority of the party to carry out trust building exercise in the run-up to the election, said Banerjee.

We will create anti-violence peace committees in all the districts, blocks and sub-divisions that fall under the red zone,” she said.

“We have to gain the confidence of the people living in those areas and bring them out of the constant state of terror they are living in. And all of us have to work very hard towards that end, Banerjee told party workers, who assembled for the extended core committee meeting of the party here.

Actually nothing like a red zone exists in reality. The ruling party is projecting certain areas as ‘red zones’ and is in turn unleashing terror in those areas, she added.

Banerjee has earmarked the border areas of the state as the yellow zone.

These are the areas from which illegal arms are smuggled into the state by the ruling Marxists. We have to be very alert in these areas and have to stop the influx of illegal arms into the state from the border areas by any means, Banerjee said.

The party plans to mark those areas where it is in a dominating position as the green zone.

The Trinamool chief also handed over the political responsibilities of certain important districts to her trusted comrades like Subrata Mukherjee, Purnendu Guha, Paresh Dutta, Sultan Ahmed, Mukul Roy, Manik Bhattacharya, Sovan Chatterjee and Dinesh Trivedi.