New Delhi, May 8: Home minister Rajnath Singh today said senior IPS officers handling anti-Maoist operations should "lead from the front" instead of sitting in the comfort of their offices in Delhi or other urban centres, articulating a resentment among troops on the ground.
The stern message, issued exactly a fortnight after the Sukma massacre, came at a high-level review meeting called to draw up a strategy to counter the rebels who have stepped up their attacks on the forces.
"The most important thing is that the officers will have to lead from the front. Success in this regard cannot be achieved only by sitting in Delhi, Ranchi or Raipur," a source quoted Rajnath as telling the meeting where IPS officers were present.
Among the others who attended the meeting were chief ministers and top officials of the security establishment of 10 Left-wing-extremism-affected states. Home secretary Moloy De and director-general of police Surajit Kar Purkayastha represented Bengal.
Sources said Rajnath was annoyed by feedback received by the home ministry that some IPS officers never led anti-Maoist operations from the front, preferring to remain in state capitals while subordinate officers supervised the operations on the ground.
More often than not, cadre officers of the CRPF, who are not from the IPS but usually recruited directly, lead the counter-offensive operations. If the officers lack leadership skills at the tactical level, it can demoralise the troops engaged in field operations.
"There is widespread resentment within the force that IPS officers are not sharing accountability and leaving the force rudderless. The minister was miffed over the systemic problem and directed the CRPF's top brass to look within," said a senior Intelligence Bureau official who attended the daylong, closed-door deliberations where the CRPF brass were present too. The CRPF is the country's main anti-Maoist force.
Last week, the Prime Minister's Office had directed CRPF director-general Rajiv Rai Bhatnagar to immediately shift the paramilitary force's central zone headquarters from Calcutta to Raipur to improve its operational efficiency.
The special director who heads the central zone and his deputy, the additional director-general, were directed to shift to the Chhattisgarh capital with their staff last Friday, as earlier reported by The Telegraph.
The decision came in the wake of the April 24 Maoist attack in Sukma, Chhattisgarh, that left 25 CRPF troopers dead. Another attack a month and a half earlier in the same region had claimed the lives of 12 troopers.
Rajnath also stressed the need for effective leadership.
"A leader is one who makes the impossible possible, converts failure into success and defeat into victory. The key properties of smart leadership are: vision, mission, passion and self-belief," the minister told the meeting.
"To make his team secure, disciplined and victorious should be of paramount importance for him.... On the Left-wing extremism front, too, we need such leaders who would, despite adversity, keep their jawans full of enthusiasm and teach them to win."
Rajnath said the central paramilitary forces needed to work with a coordinated strategy and suggested the establishment of unified coordination and command centres to fight the Maoists.
"Intelligence-sharing is important too," he said.
