Parties allege TMC-Naxal nexus

Collaboration a clear threat to internal security: Left Front.

Alleging incontrovertible evidence of a Trinamool-Naxal nexus, the Left Front and two other parties today asked the UPA government to decide whether it wanted to continue its alliance with the Mamata Banerjee-led party.

Submitting a memorandum to Home Minister P Chidambaram, leaders of CPI(M), CPI, RSP, Forward Bloc, TDP and JD(S) questioned the Manmohan Singh government to spell out how it proposed to deal with the TMC-Naxal nexus since the “collaboration” was a “clear threat” to internal security.

The fodder to attack the Trinamool chief ahead of the West Bengal Assembly elections was provided by a recent book by TMC MP Kabir Suman who gave an eye-witness account of a meeting attended by Banerjee and Union Minister Sougata Roy with two top Naxal leaders, who are currently in jail.

After the meeting Chidambaram, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury asked, “Will you (UPA) continue to allow TMC to hobnob with Naxals to save your government at the Centre? ... It is a clear threat to national security. You (UPA) have to take a call. How can the UPA continue with the contradiction when the Prime Minister describes the Naxal violence as the gravest threat to the nation and his cabinet colleagues actively collaborating with them? They can’t compromise national security to gain political mileage.”

The memorandum stated “the responsibility of overcoming the impact of Naxal violence is not the responsibility of the state governments alone, it is a phenomenon which spans across several states. Hence, the Centre has a responsibility.”

Observing that it was earlier felt that charges about TMC-Naxal nexus was being made by the Left for political considerations, Yechury said the memorandum and its annexures contained what leaders of TMC and Naxals have been saying themselves. “It contains their views from their mouth. In the memorandum, we have given evidence as we have collected it from one of their (TMC) own members of Lok Sabha who has published a book detailing various meetings that have taken place before the Nandigram incident in West Bengal,” he said.

“The meeting discusses their (Naxals) intervention in Nandigram agitation,” Yechury said, adding that the memorandum contained a statement by a Naxal leader himself who has given graphic details of how they have not only worked with TMC so far but would continue to do so in the future.

He said the home minister described it as “a serious matter and assured to look into it seriously and impartially”. “We hope the government takes cognisance of it and the minister lives up to the assurance.”