‘No Regrets’ for Criticising Chidambaram’s Anti-Naxal Strategy: Diggy

AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh has said that he has ‘no regrets’ for his public criticism of Home Minister P Chidambaram’s counter-Maoist strategy focussing ‘only on the law and order angle’, said media reports.

He said that he had conveyed his concerns to the ‘right quarters’ in the Congress leadership before penning his comments, reports said.

“I wrote the article (criticising Chidambaram) because I felt guilty on the issue of the ordinary people living in the Maoist-affected areas,” Singh was quoted as saying.

“You cannot change the ground situation unless you win over the people in the Maoist-hit areas. You cannot solve the problems with bullets. We have to win the hearts and minds of the people in those areas and wean away them from the influence of the extremists,” Singh, 63, who was chief minister of Madhya Pradesh from 1993-2003, was quoted as saying.

In an article published in the Economic Times April on 14, Singh had strongly criticised Chidambaram’s anti-Maoist strategy, saying that Chidambaram’s approach was a ‘narrow sectarian view, treating it as a purely law and order problem’.

(Based on internet reports)