New Delhi: Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh believes the Maoists are “misguided ideologues” and though the country must oppose their violence the rebels are not terrorists.
Singh was speaking to Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN's show Devil's Advocate. His interview comes after he criticized Home Minister P Chidambaram in a newspaper article on April 14, accusing him of treating the Maoists as a mere law and order problem.
Singh, a two time chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, said the Maoists' call for overthrowing the country’s political system “unacceptable”.
“We cannot succumb to this kind of violence but the key issue is how do you tackle it,” he said.
Singh, a Congress general secretary, was asked if he believed the term “misguided ideologues” lightens the crimes and violence of the rebels.
“No one can defend their criminal activities but they are not terrorists. They are those people who have committed acts of crime, which have to be dealt with firmly and decisively, but at the same time you cannot equate them with cross-border terrorists.”
Thapar asked Singh if he saw the rebels as misguided ideologues. “Absolutely,” he replied.
“They are certainly not terrorists,” he said.
Singh said he had no quarrel with the issues Maoists are fighting for. “I have no quarrel as far as their issues are concerned. They are genuine, they are relevant, but the point is that their strategy and their methodology is condemnable and not acceptable at all.”
Singh claimed that his views of adopting a multi-pronged strategy to tackle the Maoist threat has led Chidambaram to accept that the Maoists can't be tackled by military power alone. He also said sorry to the Home Minister for calling him arrogant and rigid.
“I am very happy that the Prime Minister and Chidambaramji have accepted this that you can't send the Army, you can't send the Air Force and we cannot defeat them militarily.”
“The Prime Minister himself told me that it has to be a multi-pronged strategy (against Maoists) that has to be implemented together and so has Chidambaram told me the same,” he said.
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