On Sunday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the country needs to eliminate the "destructive" communist ideology and urged Naxalites to lay down their arms, assuring them of government support. Addressing a conclave organized by Organiser Weekly on the book "Chhattisgarh@25: Shifting The Lens," published by Bharat Prakashan in Nava Raipur, Shah said that the Maoist problem cannot be attributed to a lack of development or simply viewed as a law-and-order issue.
"Extremism on the left is an ideology-driven challenge. The people of India should understand the truth of this ideology," he said.
"Wherever communists were in power, they could not bring development. Communist ideology is an ideology that promotes destruction, and the country needs to get rid of it immediately," he added.
Shah stated that communist ideology is no longer present in democratic politics. "It does not exist in Tripura and Bengal (which both had several communist governments in the past). In Kerala (currently ruled by the CPM-led LDF), it is surviving to some extent; however, people have started to change things in Thiruvananthapuram," he added.
Shah appealed to Maoists to lay down their arms, saying that the government doesn't want to use any force and will welcome those who surrender "with a red carpet". He criticized the failure to correctly assess the Maoist problem as a failure to address a serious issue.
Shah cited development data from the 1980s, particularly in Bastar, Telangana, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha's border districts, to emphasize his point. "At that time, there were more than 100 districts that were less developed than Bastar. If the problem is due to lack of development, why didn't it spread to these 100 districts?"
Before the emergence of the Maoist problem, Bastar's law-and-order statistics were much better than those of many districts in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, Shah pointed out. "This is not a law-and-order or development issue. I can prove this with facts and evidence," he said.
Shah quoted Mahatma Gandhi to emphasize that politics without ideology is immoral. He said that political parties without a clear ideology cannot effectively serve the state or nation.
Rejecting the argument that governance is merely an administrative exercise, Shah cited the smooth bifurcation of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh to form Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Uttarakhand, respectively, during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government, as examples of ideology-driven governance. However, he pointed out that the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh to form Telangana under the Congress-led UPA government of Dr Manmohan Singh resulted in prolonged bitterness and unresolved disputes.
Shah said that Chhattisgarh, on completing 25 years, is emerging as a strong pillar for Viksit Bharat @2047. Its annual budget has increased 30 times in 25 years, per capita income has risen 17 times, and Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) has registered a 25-fold increase in this period. "Chhattisgarh has shown remarkable improvement in all 16 indicators used to measure a state's economic condition. 'Viksit Chhattisgarh' is not merely a slogan, but the outcome of 25 years of governance rooted in ideology, vision and good administration," he said.