JUNE 10- Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has convened an all-party meeting in New Delhi on Monday to discuss ways to tackle Maoist menace in the backdrop of killing of Congress leaders in a Maoist attack in central Indian state Chhattisgarh last month.
The meeting, also to be addressed by Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, is expected to work towards evolving a consensus on the strategy to deal with the challenge posed by Left Wing Extremism.
A decision in this regard was taken at the meeting of the United Progressive Alliance Coordination Committee last week at the Prime Minister’s residence, which was attended by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, Nationalist Congress Party President Sharad Pawar, National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah and IUML chief E Ahamed.
The Prime Minister had told the Chief Ministers’ Conference on Internal Security on Friday that the government’s two-pronged anti-Maoist strategy of sustained operations and addressing development issues needed to be strengthened.
Maoists had ambushed a convoy of Congress leaders in Bastar district on May 25, killing 27 people including Pradesh Congress Committee chief Nand Kumar Patel, his son Dinesh, senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma and ex-Member of Legislative Assembly Uday Mudaliyar.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal Nath had termed the incident as “an attack on very foundations of democracy and entire political system” and said it called for an all-party meeting.
