The peace initiative launched by the Mamata Banerjee government after it came to power six months ago will continue. This ends at least for now, the uncertainty that the entire process was plunged into after the team of interlocutors, appointed by Ms. Banerjee, requested to be relieved of their assignment earlier this week.
This was decided after a two-hour meeting held at the Secretariat on Saturday between the Chief Minister and the six-member team of interlocutors led by Sujato Bhadra. “The peace process will continue,” he told journalists.
He said that holding parleys of this sort was time-consuming. “Getting in touch with them, getting their views across to the government. Going back and forth .. these things take time,” he said even as he expressed anguish over the role played by a section of the media.
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Another team member said that the Chief Minister had asked the interlocutors to carry on with the task assigned to them. “People want peace… we all want peace…'', he said.
Asked whether any discussions were held on the issue of suspension of the joint operations during the peace process, the team member said that he was not in a position to share with the media everything that transpired during the long interaction.
Amid escalating violence in the Jangalmahal area, the interlocutors, in a letter sent on Wednesday, to the Chief Minister had expressed desire to be relieved of their responsibilities.
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The positive ‘news' comes at the end of a week of rapid-fire round of developments when Ms. Banerjee shifted her earlier stand to blame the Maoists for the 2010 Jnaneswari train derailment.
The ‘surrender' by a hardcore Maoist couple and their meeting with the Chief Minister brought some cheer. But it was dampened a day after when Maoist leaflets were found near a Minister's chamber that called for the scalp of Ministers in the Mamata government. Ms. Banerjee told a television channel on Friday that she was aware of a joint conspiracy against her.