Calcutta, Dec. 26: The CPI (Maoist) today said it would openly hold meetings under the outfit’s own banner instead of clandestinely issuing press releases and pamphlets to media representatives.

Although not outlawed in Bengal — unlike in many states — the CPI (Maoist) has so far been operating as an underground outfit for fear of its members being arrested.

The outfit has killed many policemen and CPM leaders in Bankura, Purulia and West Midnapore and allegedly planted a mine targeting the chief minister only last month.

“We will now openly co-mmunicate with the people,” the party’s new spokesperson, Gour Chakrabarty, announced today at a first-of-its-kind news conference in Calcutta.

“We will now hold public meetings and communicate with the people,” he added.

However, he ruled out the possibility of the party contesting elections, “at least for the time being”. Chakrabarty said he would be the “face of the party” and even meet the chief minister if Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee wanted to.

The CPM brass reacted with caution. “They are welcome if they have decided to join democratic politics. But we have to wait and see exactly how they go about this. One thing is clear, they have to shun their politics of violence and hit-and-run policy,” said Left Front chairman Biman Bose.

The government has maintained that the Maoists take shelter in neighbouring Jharkhand after “hit-and-run strikes” in Bengal.

Chakrabarty, in his early 70s, today quit the Ganapratirodh Mancha, a CPI (Maoist) frontal organisation, to become the party spokesperson.

Since its formation in 2004 after the merger of the People’s War and the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC), the CPI (Maoist) has never appointed a representative to publicly interact with either the media or the people.

“The police pick up even our sympathisers, as was the case recently with some students of Jadavpur University. The girls, who lived near the university, only had some Maoist posters in their possession,” said a party leader. “It is only natural that we should stay away from the public eye.”

Chakrabarty explained why the party had decided to come into the open. “Kanchan, general secretary of the CPI (Maoist)’s Bengal chapter, requested me to join the party and become its spokesperson to spread our ideology,” he said.

Another reason was appa-rently the chief minister’s re-peated assertions that the Maoist “threat” would have to be met politically.

Chakrabarty said: “We are giving the CPM a chance to deal with us politically.”

The violence, he said, was “part of self-defence against the atrocities of the ruling party using armed police to crush us”.

Maoist sources said a reason for coming overground was also the “huge success” of the Lalgarh agitation. Although the Maoists were not openly leading the tribals’ protests against alleged police atrocities, they had been egging them on. The police stopped night raids, agreed to go on searches with the permission of village heads and withdrew police camps to pacify the protesters.

“Now let us see how the government reacts,” a Left Front leader said. “It appears to be a test case.”