New Delhi, 30 March (H.S.):

BJP national spokesperson and MP Dr Sambit Patra on Monday accused the Congress of fostering Naxalism, claiming that had the UPA government not halted the Salwa Judum movement launched by Congress leader Mahendra Karma, India would have been Naxal-free by 2020.

Speaking in a short-duration discussion under Rule 193 in the Lok Sabha on a Naxal-free India, Patra said former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh once called Naxalism the country's gravest internal threat, yet another Congress faction portrayed it as romantic adventure.

Salwa Judum's Rise and Fall

Patra recalled how tribal leader Mahendra Karma started Salwa Judum in 2005 against Naxals in Chhattisgarh, bolstered by BJP's Raman Singh government through rehab centers, only for the Supreme Court—in 2011 on Nandini Sundar's petition and with UPA's tacit nod—to disband it as unconstitutional.

He paid tribute to Karma, killed in the 2013 Darbha Valley attack that claimed 27 lives including senior Congress figures, and argued the movement's survival could have ended Naxalism years earlier.

Writer Arundhati Roy dubbed Naxals Gandhian gun-wielders, he noted, while areas like Dantewada, Parshwanath, and Budha Pahar became liberated zones beyond Constitution or security forces' reach.

Patra invoked the April 6, 2010, Chhattisgarh ambush killing 76 CRPF jawans, and a 2013 Supreme Court affidavit signed by then-Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, which exposed Maoists using urban Naxals, front groups, and NGOs to radicalize youth in security and development voids.

He cited the 2011 kidnapping of Odisha's Malkangiri collector R Vinel Krishna by Maoists, leading to the release of eight including A Padma, who later joined Harsh Mander's Aman Vedika, and Naxal convict Dr Binayak Sen's appointment to the 12th Five-Year Plan health panel despite sedition conviction.

In the 2018 Bhima Koregaon-Elgar Parishad case, arrests of Roma Wilson, Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, and Mahesh Raut drew Congress support via Rahul Gandhi's tweet, Patra charged; Union Minister Jairam Ramesh even lobbied for Raut's release when Maharashtra had a Congress government, followed by a PMRD fellowship.

Celebrations erupted at a Delhi university after the CRPF deaths, he alleged. This new India sees Congress surrender while BJP takes the fight head-on, Patra concluded.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar