We will seek a larger mandate,CMs want air support,says PC

“The security forces,the Chief Ministers want it (air support). The Chief Ministers of (West) Bengal,Andhra Pradesh,Maharashtra,Chhattisgarh,Orissa have all asked for air support,” Chidambaram said,speaking on the day Naxalites blew up a bus in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh,killing at least 35 people,mostly civilians.

Use of air strikes against the Naxalites has been a highly contentious issue so far with a number of civil society groups and some elements within the government having apprehensions about it. Chidambaram said he had already broached the subject at an earlier meeting of the CCS but it was not approved.

“I took to the cabinet committee a case for a larger mandate,but I was given a limited mandate. We will go back to the cabinet committee. I have already spoken to the Prime Minister… We will go back to the cabinet committee to revisit that mandate in the light of the revised strategy that the CPI (Maoist) is following,on which we have enough evidence and intelligence,” he said.

Chidambaram said the government had been very clear that the fight against the Naxalites had to be two-pronged — the armed conflict had to be complemented by development initiatives.

“We have always had this policy and I was always clear what the policy was. The Prime Minister was clear in his mind… and I think Mrs Sonia Gandhi is also very clear about this,” he said but admitted that statements like the one made by party leader Digvijay Singh,who had questioned the use of state force against Naxals,had weakened “one of the prongs”.