A day after Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said states could open a dialogue with Naxals on “issues of development, neglect, deprivation and composition of governance structure” if they gave up the path of violence, Maoist leader Koteshwar Rao alias Kishenji expressed his desire to sit for talks with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. He, however, ruled out laying down arms.

For the first time, the Maoist leader also admitted a death of their armed cadres in Lalgarh.

Speaking to The Indian Express from an undisclosed location, Kishenji, who is one of the top leaders of the CPI(Maoist), said it was not on their agenda to lay down arms, but they were willing to sit for talks with the state government and allow it to undertake development in Lalgarh and the surrounding areas.

“We have no objections to sitting for talks with Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee or anyone of the state government here. But we cannot lay down our arms, because it is not on our agenda. But we want development for the people of Lalgarh and, therefore, we are ready for talks,” said Kishenji on the telephone. “We have already had a bitter experience while going for talks elsewhere in the country. But we are ready to risk that in Bengal.”

Kishenji said that on September 20, he had called up the Chief Minister and had a brief talk over the phone with him. “I called him up over the phone on September 20. I told him to stop police atrocities in Lalgarh. He said personally he was not for police action, but he was under pressure,” said Kishenji. “Later, I wrote letters to the Chief Minister, but no answer came to me.”

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