Southern States
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Andhra Pradesh
CM should hold talks with naxalites, says PCC chief
By Our Staff Reporter
VISAKHAPATNAM, DEC. 6. Naxalites belonging to the People's War Group and the People's Guerilla Army should be invited for talks by the Chief Minister, Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu, and encounters stopped immediately, said the APCC president, Mr.M. Satyanarayana Rao, here on Thursday.
Addressing a press conference, he said that implementing provisions of the Prevention of of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) would not resolve the issue as the State was looking at it as a law and order problem, whereas the root cause was the socio-economic backwardness of certain class of people. In line with the Congress Working Committee (CWC) decision, the party would oppose the POTO Bill being tabled in Parliament, he added.
Advising the State Government to concentrate on the development of tribals, he said that more and more number of them were getting attracted towards these extremist groups as no real development was taking place at the ground level, leading to unemployment.
It was the Congress, under the leadership of Dr. Channa Reddy, which had initiated talks with the naxalites with Mr. Chandramouli Reddy as negotiator, but was then criticised by Opposition parties as a `misadventure', he said. No political party was in a state to ignore the weaker sections of society and if their needs were taken care of, extremism could be curbed to a large extent, he opined.
Criticising the naxalites' ideal of "bullet is mightier than ballot", he advised them to desist from destroying private and industrial property, which would further worsen the unemployment scenario in the State. Unequal opportunities for the tribals was forcing youth below 20 years to take to guns, he lamented.
`Cong. lacks unity'
Mr. Satyanarayana Rao admitted that the Congress lacked discipline and unity, for which it had to pay a big price by losing power, and advised the party functionaries to move forward together. Announcing that enforcing the wishes of the party leadership would be done away with and decision to allot party tickets to contestants during elections would be left to local units in the districts, he said the recent experiment had proved fruitful.
Congratulating the party leaders in Visakhapatnam and Vizianagaram districts on their excellent show during the recent local body polls, he said that from the stage of choosing candidates to campaigning, the local units were given freedom, which earned the party two Zilla Parishad chief posts.
The party was determined to give priority to youth and women in various party positions and in the selection of electoral candidates, he said. Of the eight Congress ZP chairpersons in the State five were women, he pointed out.
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