PM: Peaceful politics needed in Maoist areas

New Delhi (IANS): Parties must work together to ensure peaceful political activity in areas where the Maoists are active, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said at an all-party meeting here Monday. The Prime Minister, in his official Twitter post, said: "It would not be wrong to say that the Chhattisgarh attack is a frontal assault on the democratic foundations of our nation." "I believe that the Chhattisgarh attack marks the first time that they (Maoists) have targeted the top leadership of a political party," he said, at the meeting called by him to fine tune the government's strategy to deal with the issue. The meeting comes in the wake of the May 25 attack in which 30 people were killed, including senior Chhattisgarh Congress leaders like state unit chief Nand Kumar Patel and civilian militia 'Salwa Judum' founder Mahendra Karma. Former union minister V C Shukla was seriously injured in the attack. The Prime Minister urged the parties to work together to ensure peaceful political activity in the Maoist-affected areas. "We must work together to ensure that conditions become more conducive to political activity in Naxalite-affected areas," he said. The "ideology of the Naxalites is well known - adoption of violent means with a total disregard for human life, they have been resorting to inhuman attacks causing serious loss of lives to security personnel, political workers and innocent people", he added.