Decision to ban Maoists to be taken in consultation with LF

New Delhi, 20th June(PTI): As West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Saturday said his government was giving a "serious thought" to the Centre's suggestion to ban CPI (Maoist), a top CPI(M) leader said the issue would have to be discussed with other Left parties before a decision was taken. "It is not just a question of our party. It is a matter for the Left Front government. So all Left parties will have to take a view on it," Polit Bureau member Biman Basu said here when asked about the CPI(M)'s view on the issue.He said the matter was "not on the agenda" of the ongoing Central Committee meeting and was not discussed.Earlier, Mr. Bhattacharjee said, "Home Minister P Chidambaram has advised me to ban this organisation. We have to give it a serious thought." Mr. Chidambaram had on Friday said the state government should ban the CPI(Maoist). "We think they (Maoists) should be banned in West Bengal as in other states," he had said.Mr. Bhattacharjee's statement had come after his separate meetings with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Mr, Chidambaram during which the Maoist violence in parts of the state came up for discussion. Mr. Bhattacharjee also charged the Trinamool Congress with having "strong links with the group of so-called People's Committee against Police Terror", which was active in Lalgarh, and that its leader Chhatradhar Mahato was "very much a member of the Trinamool Congress." Mr. Basu, who is the Left Front Chairman, said the people of Bengal would have to "unitedly fight back the vicious cycle of violence created by certain ugly forces" in the state. Asked about TC chief Mamata Banerjee's demand that Mr. Bhattacharjee should quit as he was a "Maoist himself", Mr. Basu said "my reaction will be of no consequence because (Maoist leader) Kishenji has himself made it clear that they participated in Nandigram violence and supplied 150 rifles."Kishenji also admitted that even before they entered the area, Trinamool Congress had brought lot of arms to Nandigram," the CPI(M) leader said. Meanwhile, the CPI(M) Central Committee adopted a resolution asking all its party units to stand in solidarity with the Bengal unit to fight the "politics of terror" of the Trinamool-led alliance and the Maoist gangs."There is no doubt that this attack against the CPI(M) and its workers and sympathisers is part of the wider gameplan by powerful vested interests to weaken and destroy the party in its main base of Bengal," a party statement said. The party was of the view that these "fascistic type" of attacks on the CPI(M) were also an attack on the minimum norms of democracy and must be a matter of concern to all democratic- minded citizens.Since March this year, 53 CPI(M) members and supporters were killed apart from those belonging to other Left parties.