Union home minister Amit Shah on Monday claimed Maoism had been nearly wiped out from its Bastar stronghold and was in its last gasp, and blamed the scale of the insurgency on alleged Congress misgovernance down the decades.

His comments came during a Lok Sabha debate on the “efforts to free the country from Left-wing extremism”, held a day before the March 31 deadline Shah had set last year for the elimination of Maoism.

The government had pressed for the discussion rejecting the Opposition’s demand for an urgent debate on the West Asia crisis, arguing that Maoism was a more relevant issue and that West Asia could be taken
up later.

During the debate, an Opposition member stressed the need for parity in addressing extremism across ideologies, Left-wing or
Right-wing.

“The root cause of Naxalism is not the demand for development. It is an ideology that Indira Gandhi embraced in 1970 to win the presidential election. Naxalism spread because of this Leftist ideology,” Shah said.

“I want to ask, out of 75 years, you ruled for 60 years, why have the tribals still been deprived of development? The development of tribals is now being done by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.”

When some Opposition members blamed the Modi government for the violence, Shah said: “You first look within and see who is at fault.”

Shah said former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had acknowledged that Maoism posed a bigger challenge than the Kashmir and Northeast militancies, but the “Congress did nothing about it”.

He said development had been stalled in Bastar because of Red terror. “Now this shadow is lifting and Bastar is developing,” he said.

Azad Samaj Party member Chandrashekhar Azad said: “We oppose the killing of Adivasi people in the name of ending Maoism.”

National Conference member Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi blamed the government for the entrenchment of Right-wing extremism in the nation. He advocated parity in addressing all forms of extremism, including that targeting Muslims and other minorities.

“Any form of extremism is bad, be it (by) the Right-wing or Left-wing. We should condemn both,” he said.

Trinamool Congress member Mahua Moitra wondered why the House was discussing Maoism when what she described as a much worse crisis in West Asia was directly affecting the country.

Taking a jibe at Shah, she said there had been a “78 per cent rise in encounters and a 1,000 per cent spike in deaths”.

“If Naxalism has ended and normalcy has returned, why do heavy troops still patrol in Bastar?” she said

Congress MP Saptagiri Ulaka underlined that the UPA government had launched Operation Green Hunt and created the CoBRA commandos to deal with the Maoist threat.

Ulaka argued the UPA government had laid equal emphasis on welfare and security out of a belief that bullets alone cannot stop Maoism.

Samajwadi Party member Dharmendra Yadav said the country had not yet been freed of Maoism but acknowledged that the magnitude of the problem had diminished significantly.