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Innocent people will not be affected, says Chidambaram

— Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

FOR CURBING A MENACE: Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram is flanked by West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee (right) and Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik at a meeting in Kolkata on Tuesday to discuss the Maoist threat.

KOLKATA: Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said here on Tuesday that there was no collateral damage of any significance in the ongoing operation against Maoists and steps were being taken to ensure that innocent people were not affected.

On Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee’s opposition to the joint operations, he said: “She has a point of view and I have taken note of that point of view. She is concerned that innocent people should not be affected by the operations and we are taking steps to see that innocent people are not affected.”

He said: “Mamata Banerjee also said that the operation in West Medinipur is not yielding the results that we had hoped to achieve at the start of the operations. I have said that we will try to make it as effective as possible.”

The objective was to re-establish a civil administration in areas now under Maoist domination, he said adding that he had told Ms. Banerjee that progress would be slow but steady.

Asked about charges against the Trinamool that it was colluding with Maoists, he said: “As far as I am concerned, nobody is colluding with Maoists. Any political party in India believing in parliamentary democracy cannot collude with Maoists.”

“The Maoists are fighting the Central and State governments. They believe in an armed liberation struggle. They have called the parliamentary system a pig sty,” he said.

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