Calling Maoists “anti-people, anti-poor and anti-development”, the Congress on Wednesday said violence unleashed by them posed a “national threat”.

“Their policy of blocking development, roads and electricity cannot be called pro-common man. This is a tragic invocation of the common man. They swear in the name of the common man and supposedly act on behalf of the common man but have indulged in mindless violence,” AICC spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said here. Since 1996, they have killed 6,000 people, he said.

Rejecting CPM general secretary Prakash Karat’s allegation of involvement of a Union minister in Maoist violence, Singhvi said, “This is baseless, mindless and ridiculous. Such allegations cannot be dignified with a reply. No attempt has been made to provide an iota of evidence.”

To a query on Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee allegedly taking the support of Maoist organisations for the protests in Singur and Nandigram, Singhvi said, “How can you link the two ? While Singur-Nandigram was a genuine issue, it cannot be linked with the train incident.”