PC renews talks offer minus surrender clause

Political circles said the Home Minister’s comments would strengthen the peace initiative taken by Mamata,who had sent a team of rights activists to Junglemahal for talks with Maoists.

At the same time,Chidambaram said there was no substitute to the use of force when development took a battering because of violence.

“For development you will have to send a doctor,a nurse,a contractor or some other officials. But if the law and order situation is not conducive for sending such people,the security forces will have to be sent to regain control. There is no other alternative to such strategy,’’ he said.

Chidambaram said that in the last two years,the Centre gave Rs 3,300 crore to 60 districts affected by Naxalism across India. The Home Minister said Naxalism was a bigger threat than terrorism so far as killings are concerned. “Terrorism is also a big challenge but the killings by Naxalites is 10 times more than terrorist killings,’’ he said.

He said no country was free from the menace of terrorism. “Even the US had been victim to the monster. We will have to constantly remain alert and believe me,we have kept our police on the vigil,’’ Chidambaram said.

He lamented that the police-people ratio in India was the worst and at places,it was 80 per 1000 people. On building relations with other countries,the Home Minister said it was on the basis of a “give and take” policy that issues such as the enclave exchange and demarcation of borders were resolved.

Chidambaram,along with Mamata Banerjee,was supposed to attend the inaugural ceremony of the NSG hub at Badu in North 24-Parganas district. But the programme was cancelled,apparently because of the CPM’s objection to the presence of the chief minister in view of the coming Assembly bye-election in which she is a candidate.