Monday, November 14 2005 14:55 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Patna: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president L K Advani today (Nov 14, 2005) blamed the centre for heightened Naxalite activists and said that yesterday's (Nov 13, 2005) operation by the banned Communist Party of India (CPI) (Maoist) in Jehanabad was not a 'social problem' but 'essentially a problem of violence' which must be handled firmly.

"Centre's policy vis-a-vis Naxalites has proved to be total disaster. The central government's mishandling of the Naxalite problem is at the root of the banned outfits' functioning with impunity", he told reporters here before leaving for campaigning for the fourth phase of Bihar polls.

The extremist attack on Jehanabad jail is a serious issue and a challenge to the centre which should deal with them with 'utmost firmness', Advani said.

He said erstwhile NDA government had formed a coordination committee with the Naxal-affected states in 1998 to tackle the menace but the committee was disbanded in 2004 and states were allowed to have their own policy for the Naxalites.

"This helped the Naxalites to raise their heads and huge rallies of banned outfits took place in different parts of the country", he said.

Addressing a separate press conference BJP general secretary and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti said yesterday's Naxalite attack proved beyond doubt that 'there is no rule of law' in Bihar.

Terming the incident as 'very serious' she said the Centre, as also the Governor owed an explanation to the people as the incident had occurred under President's rule.

"The matter becomes all the more grave with authorities admitting they had received intelligence inputs about a possible attack", she said.