Raipur, May 26: Tribal MLA Kawasi Lakhma was given a choice — “stop following us or die” — unlike his state party chief Nand Kumar Patel.

“Do you want to get killed too?” a Maoist leader asked when Lakhma, bleeding from a head wound, began tailing the rebels as they led Patel and his son Dinesh deep into the forests last evening.

The bullet-riddled bodies of father and son were found in the jungles this morning.

Lakhma, his head grazed by a bullet during the Maoist ambush, is recovering in hospital and could not be contacted. The account of the incident came from a police officer who had spoken to witnesses.

He said that after the firing stopped, Patel and Dinesh hid in a roadside crater along with the injured Lakhma and his son. All four had been in the same vehicle.

Patel told Lakhma to leave the place as he knew the local dialect, which Patel didn’t. Suddenly, a group of Maoists reached the spot and asked Patel’s identity. They already knew Lakhma, the local MLA from Konta.

The state Congress chief was apparently a prime target — the rebels had earlier searched for him in the vehicles. When Patel identified himself, he and Dinesh were led away, hands tied.

As Lakhma trooped along, he was presented with the stark bullet-or-retreat option. He made the sensible choice.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi were at Raipur airport when the bodies of Patel and Dinesh arrived on a chopper, before being taken to the state Congress headquarters where party workers broke down at the sight.

Singh and Sonia had arrived in the morning and met the three dozen Congress workers injured in the attack. They went to Patel’s home to console the family, and left for Delhi after paying tributes to the slain party leaders.

The funerals of Patel, Salwa Judum founder Mahendra Karma and former MLA Uday Mudaliar will be held tomorrow in Raigarh, Bastar and Rajnandgaon, respectively.

Congress activists protested on the streets and blocked tracks at some places.

Shukla critical

Former Union minister Vidya Charan Shukla, 84, who took three bullets that damaged his liver, lung and intestines, lies in “critical” condition at a Gurgaon hospital. Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and BJP leader L.K. Advani today visited him.

Shukla’s father Ravi Shankar Shukla and late elder brother Shyama Charan Shukla were chief ministers of undivided Madhya Pradesh.

Intelligence sources said the Maoists had planned to attack either the Vikas Yatra of BJP chief minister Raman Singh or the Parivartan Yatra of the Congress in Bastar. Singh’s Yatra, which was better protected, passed through the rebel belt peacefully.

“The rebels had laid an ambush near Injaram in Konta to attack Singh’s convoy,” an intelligence official said, “but a gunfight took place in the area before the motorcade arrived.”

With the security personnel on full alert, the Maoists did not dare attack the convoy, he added.