No shortcut to resolve Maoist issue, says Centre

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Monday called for a proactive strategy to counter Maoists with an emphasis on smart leadership, aggression, and financial choking.

Chairing a meeting of the chief ministers and top officials of 10 Maoist-hit states, Singh came up with ‘SAMADHAN’ approach combining smart leadership, aggressive strategy, motivation and training, actionable intelligence, dashboard-based Key Performance Indicators and Key Result Areas, harnessing technology, action plan and no access to funds.

He was confident that the country will successfully confront the Left wing extremists (LWE) with full force and competence, and wanted the states to take the ownership of Maoist operations during which paramilitary forces will provide active cooperation.

“The forces on the ground level should not lack leadership. Unity of purpose and unity of action are essential for the success of operations,” Home Minister Rajnath Singh said in the meeting, which comes a fortnight after the killing of 25 CRPF personnel in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma.

He said the whole country is agitated over the incident and the Maoists are constantly trying to inflict losses on security forces to boost their morale.

“Today, we need to consider whether to react only after the occurrence of any incident? Should our role not be proactive?” he said, as he invoked the US commission on 9/11 attack which noted that the attack was a result not just because of intelligence failure, but failure of imagination.

“Maoist problem cannot be resolved through silver bullets or any shortcut, but through short-term, medium-term and long-term solutions,” he said adding, “choking the financial resources is the most basic mantra in the fight against Maoists.”