Lalgarh (West Midnapore), August 9
Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee today scored political mileage over the CPM by successfully holding a massive rally in the inaccessible Maoist-infested Lalgarh area where the CPM had been trying to entrench into with the help of the police and joint action force.
At the rally, the Railway Minister gave a call to the Maoists to abjure violence and come to the negotiations table. She asked the Maoists to stop subversive activities and blasting of railway lines. She assured them of quick development in the neglected backward areas. She also promised a railway factory at Lalgarh for providing jobs to the local youths.She demanded that the dialogue process with the Maoists, which Swami Agnivesh had started, should be resumed immediately for restoring peace and normalcy in Lalgarh and other areas. She was herself ready to take part in the peace process, if needed, but the Maoists should first surrender their arms. She said she would formally make a demand to the UPA for allowing forest rights to adivasis.
The minister said she would also persuade Union Home Minister P Chidambaram to withdraw central forces from the area. She said the Maoists perhaps did not know that for establishing its control in the area, the CPM had been killing local people with the help of the joint action force and the blame was being put on them.
The TMC leader demanded a judicial probe into the killing of Maoist leader Azad, who, she suspected, had been killed in a fake encounter with the police in Andhra Pradesh while he was involved in peace talks with Swami Agnivesh, acting as a mediator of the Home Ministry. Despite hot and humid weather, thousands people from different parts of West and East Midnapore districts were present at Ramkrishna School grounds and the adjoining fields, about 40 km from Midnapore town for listening to the minister and other eminent personalities attending the rally.
