Daring back-to-back attacks by Left-wing insurgents — in West Bengal on Monday and in Bihar on Thursday — have left the Centre fuming.
The government is appalled at the affected states’ total lack of concern in countering the challenge. It believes the flip-flop attitude of Bihar, Jharkhand and Bengal is resulting in the insurgents striking at will.
The realisation seemed to have dawned on Bengal CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Thursday when he admitted lapses in security, but his Bihar and Jharkhand counterparts, Nitish Kumar and Shibu Soren, are still weighing their political needs.
Sources said in his report to the Centre on the Shilda attack, Bhattacharjee expressed concern at Soren not showing any inclination to fight the menace. According to reports, the Maoists who executed the attack in Bengal’s West Midnapore district came from Jharkhand and fled back to the state after killing over 24 Eastern Frontier Rifles jawans.
An exasperated senior home ministry official admitted the insurgents were taking benefit of the unprepardness of these states to fight back. The other reason for Bhattacharjee’s ire was the skipping of the meeting of four Maoist-affected states convened by Union home minister P Chidambaram in Kolkata by Soren and Kumar.
Due to lack of cooperation from states, the Centre’s plan to launch an inter-state operation has remained a non-starter. The operation was to be overseen by the Centre with an officer of a central paramilitary force ensuring coordination between states and checking possible jurisdictional disputes.
