Aug. 31: More than being a security challenge, the back-to-back Naxalite strikes in Bihar — the kidnapping of a block development officer in Muzaffarpur and the bloody toll they took of jawans in Lakhisarai’s Kajra hills — pose an ideological dare to chief minister Nitish Kumar close to a critical Assembly election.

Nitish has consistently and pointedly differed with the Centre’s security-oriented approach to neutralising Naxalite expansion and chosen the development tack to undermine rebel influence.

During the last meeting of chief ministers of Naxalite-affected states in New Delhi in July, Nitish was the only leader to strike a dissenting note of sorts, foregrounding development requirements as opposed to policing measures as the “only way” to outflank the Maoists.

Chief ministers of most other states had concurred with Union home minister P. Chidambaram and stressed a coordinated security effort to march into Naxalite-dominated areas ahead of the development train.

Arguing that Naxalism was a political fallout of socio-economic imbalances, Nitish said correcting them was the only way of finding a lasting solution. He took particular pride in his government’s “aapki sarkar aapke dwar (your government at your doorstep)”, a showcase welfare initiative launched in 69 villages of Bihar’s eight Maoist-affected districts, and not only sought central funds to strengthen it but also recommended it to fellow chief ministers.

But these attacks, which have also exposed fatal differences between the state police and the CRPF in addition to the ineptness of deployed forces, could well bring pressure on the Nitish government to reassess its anti-Naxalite strategy.

Sources here suggested the Union home ministry may flag the Kajra hills bloodbath to “point out to the Bihar government that it cannot live in blissful ignorance of the security imperatives of the Naxalite threat”.

The burden of changing strategy will come to bear especially if there are more such incidents in the run-up to elections, scheduled for October-November.

But the Nitish government is likely to fight off its critics hard, insisting it has employed the right line. “There will inevitably be the odd setbacks such as the one in Jamui,” Nitish’s political spokesperson and JD(U) MP Shivanand Tiwari said today. “But the point is that our approach to countering the Naxalite menace is the most humane and the most comprehensive.”

Tiwari claimed that the Nitish government’s efforts to outflank Naxalites had gone beyond merely focusing on development.

“The string of empowerment initiatives we have taken, including radical reforms at the panchayat level and reservations with the extremely backward and mahadalit communities, is a way of politically fighting off Naxalites. Those are the sections the Maoists make their bases in and those are the sections we have tried to win over through positive measures,” Tiwari said.

He admitted disarmingly that the Naxalite strikes could open the Bihar government to attacks from the Centre and political adversaries in the state.

“That’s natural for our political opponents to do, but the fact is that we have been employing both strategies on the ground, it is not as if we have taken our eyes off security operations.”

Pointing out that the largest number of Naxalite activists had been apprehended during the Nitish regime — close to 2,000 between 2006 and 2010 — Tiwari said: “Our chief minister and our government are well aware of the security challenge the Naxalites pose and we are up to the task. The difference is that we are emphatic about development being the only solution to this problem, it cannot be sorted out by security operations.”