March 30, 2026
Mahua Moitra’s speech on efforts to free the country from left-wing extremism
Hon. Chairperson, Sir, I am the only speaker from my Party. Sir, you have listened so respectfully and quietly whenever the BJP MPs and their allies have been speaking. I am very fond of you. I hope you will accord me the same respect. Not at all. It is a request, Sir. I stand today on behalf of my Party, the All India Trinamool Congress to participate in a discussion on the Left Wing Extremism in India. It is richly ironic that when today India along with so many other parts of the world is reeling under the terror of the Right Wing; when the West Asia crisis is enveloping the whole world; when this Government has neither given us any answers as to what our hon. Prime Minister was doing in Israel two days before the IranIsrael war started, nor have the people of India been given any clear roadmap as to how our energy crisis is going to unfold; when queues are forming outside petrol stations; when black-marketing of LPG cylinders is going on; when the airfares have exploded because the Ministry has removed the airfare cap; suddenly you are having a discussion on the Left-Wing extremism. Why? It is because this beleaguered Government, and more specifically, the hon. Home Minister wants to use this as an excuse to pat himself on the back and for the BJP MPs and their allies to stand up and say, “Look, how great is Mr. Amit Shah Ji. सबको ठोककर ठंडा कर दियोा।” We are not stupid. Indians are not stupid. We can see this discussion and its timing for what it is, which is merely a diversion from what else is going on in the world and in India on streets. Now, when we look at Left-Wing extremism in India, where did it start? It can be traced back to the peasant uprising in Naxalbari, in my State, West Bengal, in the Siliguri area, in 1967. It was a movement led by Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal, and Jangal Santhal. This gave birth to the CPI(ML), that is, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969, spread from West Bengal to other States, which continues to this day. In 2004, the People’s War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India, that is, the MCCI, merged to form the CPI(Maoist). Now, what did Mao say? What had he said himself about guerrilla warfare? Mao had said a guerrilla must move amongst its people in the same way that a fish swims in the sea. What started as an agrarian uprising in a small corner of West Bengal gradually evolved into a major security threat for all of India, internal security, peaked in the late 2000s. When LWE was at its peak in 2011, approximately 180 districts, that is, about 22 per cent of the 800 districts of India, were under the grip of LWE. There was a ‘Red Corridor’ that spread across Central and Eastern India, covering Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bihar, and parts of West Bengal. Over time, this corridor has shrunk significantly. Now, it is contained to merely about three States, namely, Chhattisgarh mostly, Jharkhand, parts of Maharashtra. This insurgency was led by guerrilla-style warfare, and it was targeting police, civilian infrastructure, and civilians. It led to hundreds and thousands of civilian deaths. Left-Wing Extremism did not just happen overnight; it is not something that just came out of the earth. Its roots are socio-economic, political, exploitation of native lands, displacement of tribals, looting of natural resources which rightfully belong to tribals, and historical neglect of poor and tribal areas by successive Governments. Now, LWE cannot be viewed as just a law-andorder problem, and it cannot be solved as just a law-and-order problem. It has been famously said by Henry Kissinger that ‘a conventional army loses if it does not win, but a guerrilla wins if he does not lose. As long as he remains, he has not lost’. Today, the BJP will claim that they have solved the LWE issue, but it is not a Rubik’s Cube that you can simply line up and solve. It is not so easy. In truth, the LWE solution has been taken up by the Governments right from early 2000s when the UPA brought in MGNREGA, brought in the Forest Rights Act in 2006, and this kind of legislation for the first time gave tribal rights over land and their forest. Integrated action plans also decentralised developments, where you had district collectors and local authorities having flexibility to respond to local needs in tribal areas. So, the success that the BJP Government is talking about, and that its allies are tom-tomming, is this the result of a policy of total elimination, where we have seen a huge increase in the number of killings? Can that be called success? There is a 131 per cent increase in killings between 2019 and 2025 in LWE areas, whereas there has been a 26 per cent decrease in LWE arrests during the same period. Killings go up, arrests go down. So, are you just cleaning them out or are you getting them to surrender? There is a big difference. Between 2021 and 2024, nearly 1300 deaths occurred due to LWE. The highest number was in Chhattisgarh, with over 800, followed by Jharkhand with about 300, and then Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal has recorded zero deaths in the last three years. Let us look beyond the rise in killings. What else has the Government done for these areas? Let us examine the funds. When we look at the un-utilised funds, security-related expenditure and special infrastructure schemes for LWE areas, the Government did not utilise 14 per cent of its funds in 2025-26. In the financial year that has just ended, 14 per cent of the funds meant for these areas were not utilised by the Government. When we look at the security forces, this area’s security force deployment is at its peak outside of Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur. These are the most militarized areas. There were over one lakh vacancies in the Central Armed Police Forces in 2025 which is a 70 per cent increase in vacancies from the year 2024 to 2025. Now, let us have a look at suicides. With heavy deployment of CRPF in these areas, there have been nearly 160 suicides in the last three years, which have been increased by 22 per cent between 2024 and 2025. The next piece of data says that the resignations among CRPF personnel increased by 290 per cent between 2020 and 2025. It has increased by three times in five years. Now, I would like to mention about the rights of the tribals. 121 tribals were wrongfully held responsible for the death of 25 CRPF jawans in Sukma in 2017. They all were acquitted. They were first tried under UAPA and then, jailed. They were all acquitted by the National Investigation Agency. They have spent years in jail from 2017 till now. ext, I would state about infrastructure in the LWE areas. What has the Government done? The Standing Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj is chaired by my friend, Shri Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, who was a speaker before me. We are looking at road connectivity. Under PMGSY, there is another vector, which is a road connectivity project for LWE areas. This was launched in 2016. The deadline for the completion of this was in 2020. They had to extend it to 2025. In this, 12,000 kilometre of roads was sanctioned. Till now, only 9,500 kilometre has been completed and 2,700 kilometre is lying untouched while the funds are still there. I would now like to mention about the education in these areas. There are Eklavya Model residential schools. 31 per cent of these schools in the LWE areas are non-functional. 69 per cent of total sanctioned and non-teaching posts are vacant. There are no teachers. 70 per cent of the things are vacant. How are the children of Adivasis in these areas going to get an education? If we look at our State, West Bengal, it has a direct contrast. In the first six years of the Mamata Banerjee Government, that is from 2011 to 2017, 328 LW extremists had surrendered. 225 have been rehabilitated. There has not been one LWE incidence in the last three years in Bengal, in Jhargram, Bankura, Purulia and West Medinipur. What is most important is that the people in those areas have been integrated into a civilian development model of welfare distribution. So, we are not using military camps to give them welfare like they are having to do in Chhattisgarh. The normal Duare Sarkar camps from where the normal welfare reaches these people as it does to someone in Calcutta or someone in Nadia or Murshidabad. Even today, the Home Ministry is patting itself on its back. Bastar in Chhattisgarh, where the BJP returned to power in 2023, is one of the most militarized areas in India other than Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur. The official data placed by the Ministry of Home Affairs indicates that as of 13th December 2025, the number of fortified police stations in Naxal-affected areas has increased from 66 in 2014 to 586. Look at the increase. Despite the Government’s repeated claims that Maoist influence has significantly declined and normalcy is returning to Bastar, there is no corresponding indication of demilitarization or phased withdrawal of troops. If something is returning to normal, if you have done away with the LWE, then why are your troops still there? Why is the area so still heavily militarized? This is the first question I want to raise. A particularly concerning development, in this regard, in Chhattisgarh is this Niyad Nellanar Scheme, which was introduced in 2024 by the BJP Government in Chhattisgarh. Their Government is saying that it is a welfare scheme for Adivasis in remote areas. They have got 160 Anganwadi centers functioning under it. In practice, however, what is happening is that essential services, such as public services, ration, health care, education, are all being done in proximity with militarized camps. This is raising very serious concerns because welfare delivery has to be civilian. It has to be rights-based. Now it is being mediated through militarized spheres. Access to entitlement is done only if you go into a barbed wire camp, give your identity document, talk to five military personnel and only then can you get your just dues. This, for democracy, is a death knell. This is transforming welfare from a matter of right to a matter of controlled access. There are persistent allegations coming in from Chhattisgarh from affected communities that many of these camps and associated infrastructures have been constructed in complete violation of the statutes of the Panchayat Scheduled Areas Act (PESA) and under the Forest Rights Act, without any due process, without consulting any Gram Sabhas Now, what we have seen in the LWE areas under this Government in the past three years, is not a transition from conflict to civilian normalcy but an entrenchment of a security-led governance model. … Sir, I have got three more minutes. Now, I have got a few primary questions that I would like to ask the Ministry of Home Affairs. Please let me finish. If the Government’s position is that normalcy is returning in Bastar and other LWE regions, what is the rationale for maintaining such an intense defence security infrastructure? Two, will the Government table district-wise details of all security camps established in LWE and whether these are in violation of the lands and rights of the tribals in the areas? And what is the accountability – most important – for fake encounters and extra-judicial killings? There is a steep rise in killings. There is a 78 per cent increase in reported encounters in Baster contrasted with thousand per cent increase in the number of persons killed. This is a serious and avoidable question. Are you doing away with people where you could have mediation and … Sir, one minute. Please let me finish. It is an important discussion. We have asked for it. The House is empty. Sir, please, four hours have been given … I am the only speaker from my Party. Sir, please give me two more minutes. The developments must be examined in the context of the Surrender and Rehabilitation Policy because what you are doing is that you are turning entire Adivasi areas into surveillance States. You have got drones on top of them. Their homes/residences are photographed. Village-level data is taken. So, are you just making entire populations terrorist populations? There is one last question that I have to bring up, which is about DRG. It is very important. The District Reserve Guard (DRG) was an auxiliary force consisting of surrendered Maoists. The Government is today saying that they are the backbone of the success story. But there are serious charges. These are all highly armed extremists who have surrendered. How can you use them today? This is against the Salwa Judum… Sir, let me finish the last line. … To really remove the threat of LWE, we need to win trust. It is not about winning terrain. People need to give up fear. They do not just need to give up guns. So, this is important. Please do not pat yourself on the back till this is done. Thank you.
