Kolkata/New Delhi, Aug. 18: Top Maoist leader Kishenji late on Tuesday night suggested a three-month ceasefire by both sides and talks for a peace process.
The truce offer comes two days after the President, Ms Pratibha Patil, and the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, asked the Maoists to abjure violence and come to the discussion table.
“The President and the Prime Minister, in their Independence Day speeches, have appealed to the Maoists to abjure violence. We are never for violence but the government has instigated us to take up arms,” Kishenji said from an undisclosed destination.
“When our comrade Azad was preparing ground for talks, he was treacherously killed... So, it is very clear from the activities of the government that they don’t want any peace,” Kishenji said.
The Maoist leader claimed there were “some reports from the Prime Minister’s office that (railway minister and Trinamul chief) Mamata Banerjee has been asked to work as a mediator. If she agrees, then we have no problem”.
The Centre, meanwhile, took with a pinch of salt the latest offer from Maoist for talks and said it seems that the Centre’s suggestion to abjure violence and come for a dialogue was falling on deaf ears.
Sources in the government said while Maoists have been asked by the President and the Prime Minister to come forward for talks, the process of dialogue was a long way and would take at least one year for any progress.
“They will come for talks only when they will get the heat,” a source said.
However, the sources said that there would be no let up in the operations against the Maoists.
“We are not thinking of cease-fire as of now keeping in mind the tactics used by Maoists to regroup during the ceasefire,” the official said.
Ms Banerjee, meanwhile, indicated she was not averse to playing mediator between the Centre and the Maoists, as the latter had suggested.
“It is up to the Centre to decide what process it wants to follow. I cannot interfere,” she said. There is a separate ministry for that. I have seen only the media reports on Kishenji’s statement. Let me cross check all details,” she said.
She said as for her opinion as a party chief, she would only say that let the problem be solved through negotiations in a democratic process.
In a related development, Ms Banerjee, unfazed by the combined Left-BJP onslaught over her Lalgarh remarks, strongly defended her stand on Maoists, including her claim that their leader Azad was “murdered”.
“I am proud of my Lalgarh visit and if need be I’ll go again,” she told reporters on Wednesday on her way to New Delhi to attend Parliament from Thursday.
She had to absent herself for 10 days after getting injured when a truck hit her convoy on the way back from Lalgarh. “For the past 10 days, I have not been able to talk to anyone,” she said.
While Ms Banerjee was recuperating in Kolkata, the Left and the BJP launched a scathing attack against her in Parliament over the Lalgarh rally, which they claimed would strengthen the Maoists, and particularly her claim about Azad.
The finance minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, flew to Kolkata to persuade her to attend Parliament and make a statement. But Ms Banerjee, far from being defensive, made it clear she would go on the offensive against her Left and BJP detractors.