Union Home Minister Amit Shah, on Sunday, called a meeting to discuss Left-Wing Extremism. The meeting at Vigyan Bhawan was attended by Chief Ministers of states which have been affected by Left Wing Extremism which includes Maoist-Naxalites attacks. The meeting was also attended by DGP and the Chief Secretaries of those states. While KCR, Uddhav Thackeray, Nitish Kumar, and Naveen Patnaik attended the meeting, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee skipped the meeting. 

The crucial meeting called by Amit Shah, the Home Minister was attended by representatives of 10 states. Various issues ranging from intensifying operations against Maoists, stopping their fund through joint collaboration with central agencies like Enforcement Directorate (ED), National Investigation Agency (NIA), and state police forces, targeting the front organizations, and carrying out widespread development activities among others were discussed during the meeting that lasted for several hours at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi.  

The meeting was attended by the Chief Minister of Odisha (Naveen Patnaik), Bihar (Nitish Kumar), Telangana (KCR), Jharkhand (Hemant Soren), Maharashtra (Uddhav Thackeray), and Madhya Pradesh (Shivraj Singh Chouhan). Also present in the meeting were Ashwini Vaishnaw, Gen (retd) V K Singh, Giriraj Singh, Arjun Munda, and Nityanand Rai, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla, and Intelligence Bureau Chief Arvinda Kumar. Director Generals of NIA and Central Paramilitary Forces were also present in the meeting.  

However, Chief Ministers of Chhattisgarh (Bhupesh Baghel), West Bengal (Mamata Banerjee), Kerala (Pinarayi Vijayan), and Andhra Pradesh (Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy) skipped the meet and instead sent their chief secretaries and senior police officials. The meeting comes at a time the country has seen a drastic fall in left-wing extremism which includes Maoist insurgency.  Shah during the meeting said, Âin decades of fighting, we have reached a point where the death toll is less than 200 for the first time and this is a huge achievement for all of us. He even said, ÂWe all know that unless we get rid of the problems of left-wing extremism completely, the full development of the country and the states affected by it is not possible. Without eliminating it, neither we will be able to spread democracy to the bottom nor will we be able to develop the underdeveloped areas.Â

Shah also stressed the fact that the government in recent times has been successful in getting various insurgent groups to surrender their arms, especially in the North-East. Union Home Minister also went on to add that the root cause of Left-Wing Extremism is the dissatisfaction over-development not reaching affected areas in the last six decades and that we need to ensure schools, connectivity and infrastructure reaches those affected areas. 

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