Calcutta, July 3: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today ruled out a ban on Maoists, saying the government would prefer to tackle them “administratively and politically”.

“We have decided not to ban the Maoists. I had made that clear a few months ago during a meeting of chief ministers at the Prime Minister’s residence,” Bhattacharjee said in response to a question from the leader of Opposition, the Trinamul Congress’s Partha Chatterjee.

The chief minister pointed to Naxalbari as an example of this approach producing results, stressing that mere bans were not enough to isolate the Maoists from common people. “Not a single Naxalite can be spotted today in the Naxalbari area of the Siliguri sub-division because of our concerted political campaign against them.”

Bhattacharjee made it clear, though, that the government wouldn’t “compromise” in its fight against the Maoists, whose sole agenda “is to kill CPM and Opposition activists”.

The chief minister said the rebel strongholds were in Bengal bordering Jharkhand, which provided them a safe haven. “After committing crimes in our state, they flee to Jharkhand, making it difficult for us to arrest them.”

The rebel-infested Belpahari, Binpur, Lalgarh and Jamboni in West Midnapore, Bagmundi, Arsha, Bandwan and Balarampur in Purulia and Ranibadh and Saranga in Bankura are close to Jharkhand, he said. “As a result, they easily flee there to escape arrest.”

When CPM MLA Nikhil Mukherjee asked if the authorities were co-ordinating with Jharkhand in dealing with the Maoists, the chief minister said the move hadn’t yielded “much results”.