Congress encouraged Left Extremism, says BJP

New Delhi, Sep 5 (UNI) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today said the Congress that had encouraged Left extremism like Maoism and Naxalism for its vote bank politics was now only beginning to realise its mistake.

Talking to newspersons, BJP General Secretary Arun Jaitley said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's acceptence that the Left Wing extremism had gone out of control was an indication of the fact.

He said the Congress first initiated a patch up with ULFA and the then PWP to promote its vote bank policies. However, it had miserably failed to bring them around as both the parties stuck to their own stand.

In Andhra Pradesh, in order to form the government, the Congress tied up with Telengana Rashtriya Samiti (TRS) but failed to persuade them to give up their stand for a separate Telengana state.

The TRS was now eroding the Congress base in the state, he said.

Cautioning the UPA government about the emergence of the pre-70s situation in Naxalism, Mr Jaitley said if one year pattern of Naxal and Maoist activities in as many as 160 districts of the country were assessed, one could easily see there was a big difference between such extremists in Naxal-affected districts of Madhubani, Jehanabad, Girdih, Chhatisgarh and other terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir.

While terrorists indulged themselves in subversive activities, sabotage, killing and blasts, left extremists imparted armed training to local people and gave them arms and ammunition to fight the establishment. As a result, these 'local people groups', which were in thousands, attacked police stations, looted ammunition and killed innocent people.

UNI KAS KD HT2105