NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party has charged the Left with being ``pro-naxal'' and ``anti-tribal,'' for its demand at the recent coordination committee meeting of the United Progressive Alliance and the Left that the Government disband Salwa Judum, which has been fighting the naxal menace.

BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar's criticism of the Left comes a day after reports said that the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, at the party's national executive meeting last month, complimented the Left for its streak of poll victories and recommended its emulation.

Mr. Javadekar said the Left had a duplicitous stand on naxals — as on other issues, such as rise in petrol price. While it adopted a hard position against naxals in West Bengal, it was seemingly sympathetic to them in other States. He blamed the talks initiated with naxals in Andhra Pradesh by the Rajashekhar Reddy Government, soon after it came to power over two years ago, for the spurt in naxal attacks in the neighbouring Chhattisgarh.

Salwa Judum, Mr. Javadekar said, was a ``people's movement'' against the violence perpetrated by naxals. It had the support of the Congress and the BJP, as well as the Government. But the Left had openly demanded withdrawal of some Army battalions from the area and wanted to finish the Salwa Judum movement.

He did not agree to reporters' suggestions that ordinary people had become victims of naxal and police violence as a result of the Salwa Judum. If they joined it they became targets of attack by naxals; if they did not they became objects of suspicion in the eyes of police.

Maoists and naxals had established a ``red corridor'' from Nepal to Andhra Pradesh; yet the CPI (M) adopted a soft approach to the problem while going for a no-holds-barred war against naxals in West Bengal.

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