Digvijay involved in double speak: Raman

     Raipur, April 26, 2010: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh has accused the AICC General Secretary Digvijay Singh of involved in “double speak” and “intellectually dishonest”.

     In reaction to the article of the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister dated April 14, 2010 in the Economic Times on the naxal issue, the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister  accused him of engaged in “double speak”.

     “Whether Union Home Minister P Chidambaram is intellectually arrogant or not I have no hesitation to say that Shri Digvijay Singh is intellectually dishonest for a deliberate, motivated and deceitful article which not only misrepresents the facts but also maligns a towering personality of the Bastar region,” said Raman.

     In the same breath, the Chief Minister said after systematically destroying Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh (when it was part of Madhya Pradesh), Digvijay was now ruling the roost in Delhi.

     Perhaps the article in the Economic Times has more to do with internal politics and dynamics of Congress then with counter-Maoist strategy, Raman said adding it was for his colleagues in the Congress to decide whether the observations of Digvijay on Chidambaram were actually called for or in good taste.

     Digvijay Singh had systematically exploited the natural resources of Chhattisgarh without ploughing anything back into this region. The seven years regime of Digvijay is considered a “Dark Age in the history of Chhattisgarh,” Raman said.

     It was Digvijay Singh’s apathy and neglect of Bastar, which provided a fertile ground for Naxalism to grow in Bastar in the 90’s. It was also he who sunk Bastar in a morass, the Chief Minister accused.

     Digvijay in his article has written that the buck stops with the Chief Minister for law and order.  It would be pertinent to ask Digvijay Singh who was the Chief Minister when the Transport Minister of Madhya Pradesh government was brutally killed by Naxalites in Balaghat in 1999. Where didthe buck stop then? Raman asked.

     All talk about development without effectively tackling Naxalism is over-simplification and a manifestation of seeing the vexed problem of Naxalism through tinted glasses, Raman told Digvijay.