Southern States - Andhra Pradesh   

People's War rules out talks with A.P. Govt.

By K. Srinivas Reddy

HYDERABAD NOV. 5. The CPI-ML People's War (PW) has ruled out the possibility of holding talks with the Andhra Pradesh Government while rejecting the Chief Minister, N. Chandrababu Naidu's call to lay down arms and join the mainstream.

The October 1 attempt on the life of Mr. Naidu was intended to force the Government to come to the negotiating table, but it targeted Mr. Naidu as he "symbolises" the subservience to international funding agencies to whom the interests of the State have been mortgaged in utter disregard to people's welfare, according to the People's War.

In an interview to a group of select journalists in the dense forests of Nallamala two days ago, the first-ever after the October 1 attack on Mr. Naidu, Naveen, secretary of the Nalgonda district unit of the PW, accused the Government of being insincere in holding talks with the PW despite mounting pressure from the intelligentsia and political parties.

He said his party had initiated the talks process by announcing a unilateral ceasefire three years ago, and stressed that it was the police who had scuttled the talks process by resorting to `encounter killings'.

He said the Government was not interested in holding talks simply because it was not prepared to discuss the people's issues which the PW would bring into focus.

"They know what would be the consequences if talks are held with the PW. Any such exercise would only expose the hollowness of the government programmes which are intended to serve the purpose of international funding agencies rather than the welfare of the people.

To cover up this, they come out with arguments that the PW was trying to use talks to regain its lost ground and to improve its finances and weaponry," he maintained.

When his attention was drawn to the PW circular which mentioned that talks were only part of tactics, the naxalite leader said the PW used it as a tactic only to the extent of exposing the hollowness of the Government's claims on solving people's problems.

"Our aim was to expose the hollow claims and we have succeeded to a large extent," Mr. Naveen said pointing out that the party's stand on the issue of talks was stated many a time in different interviews.

The naxalite leader said the PW was imposing a "ban" on the ruling Telugu Desam Party in its struggle areas and asked all the party functionaries to resign from the party and lead "a normal life".

He cautioned that the PW would take a strong view of TDP functionaries announcing resignations "only on paper" but continuing their activities.

Asked about the rationale behind attacking Mr. Naidu, who became a Chief Minister with popular support, Mr. Naveen said it was only the media which were making him a Chief Minister enjoying the support of the people.

"In reality people are opposing him."

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