Under fire from his party colleagues for swapping Maoists to secure the release of a kidnapped police officer, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today said he had “learnt lessons” from the episode and that his government would not broker such deals in the future.

He, however, sought to defend the decision and said it should be seen as an “exception”.

In a way, the Chief Minister accepted the argument that the decision to free Maoist cadres would set a dangerous trend. It is learnt that the swap has not gone down well with the Union Home Ministry, which has subtly conveyed its displeasure to the state government. The topic came up when Bhattacharjee met Union Home Minister P Chidambaram on Friday, sources said.

What got the Union Home Ministry worried was that it was completely kept in the dark about the West Bengal government’s negotiations with the Naxals and the subsequent release of Maoist cadres in return for the officer at a time when a joint Centre-state operation is underway in the state and a massive crackdown against Left-wing insurgents is being planned.

While Bhattacharjee insisted that the decision should not be seen as “surrender” before the Maoists as his government has only accepted a “simple” demand put forward by the rebels to defuse the crisis, sources said it was firmly conveyed to him that the deal had dangerous ramifications as it would embolden the Maoists to adopt “pressure tactics” again when pushed to the wall.

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