Senior Congress leader from Telangana K. Kesava Rao has asked the Centre to solve the Naxalite issue instead of running away from it. “Naxal is a socio-economic problem.
The government should see it from that perspective and deal with it accordingly. For the first time in the country the AP government held talks with Naxalites, after which Naxal violence has decreased drastically in the state,” he told reporters here on Wednesday.
Rao said media could not understand the remarks of Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde that Naxal issue was coming in the way of formation of Telangana state.
On Shinde’s observation that Naxal problem compounded in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand after these two states were carved out of larger states Madhya Pradesh and Bihar respectively, Kesava Rao said there was no truth in the argument.
Claiming that the Congress had never opposed the concept of smaller states, he said the party constituted a committee under the chairmanship of the then Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee during UPA-1 rule to study the demand for smaller states.
The committee submitted a report to the AICC leadership backing the concept of smaller states. Congress had supported the carving of 3 new states during NDA rule, Rao recalled.