NEW DELHI: Faced with criticism from opponents for the crackdown on “urban Naxals”, BJP struck a defiant note, saying bold action was needed to foil the conspiracy to disrupt the country’s integrity.

As allegations poured in from rivals that it was muzzling dissent, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra applauded the government for “acting firmly against those threatening to balkanise the country”, the aggressive response underlining both its isolation and government’s determination to go after what security agencies view as support structure for Maoists.

The dragnet marks an important turn in the approach towards Maoists, signalling a willingness to extend the offensive beyond the underground combatants to cover sympathisers who have formidable reputations as activists. It sits well with the “tough-on-security” plank the government had wielded on the strength of its “surgical strike” against the external threat, i.e. Pakistan-backed jihadi terror.

The sweep comes at a time when the Maoist threat stands considerably defanged because of the blows inflicted by security agencies.

The guerillas never succeeded in garnering significant popular support — as evident from their failure to get people to boycott elections — outside known pockets of influence.

Their credibility, however, has lately been considerably dented because of allegations of revolutionary leaders using the “class struggle” to feather their personal nests, sexual exploitation of women fighters and the hegemony of outsiders over local footsoldiers drawn from among tribals and Dalits.

The view that Left-wing extremists have acquired an influential constituency among urban intellectuals predates PM Modi.

It was his predecessor Manmohan Singh who defined them as the No.1 security threat — a categorisation that struck many as key also as it came at a time jihadi terrorists were haemorrhaging India with a series of bomb attacks.

While the initial intensity of the revived Maoist militancy took it by surprise, UPA-1 soon crafted a robust response. It also took action against the alleged intellectual mentors of left-wing terrorists and arrested Kobad Gandhy and G N Saibaba.

But the UPA refrained from articulating the alleged role of “urban Maoists” in subversion and did not follow through individual arrests with a hammer blow against what security agencies call the network of support.

Congress’s stand looked blurred after Rahul Gandhi ’s visit to JNU after the developments in 2016 when a group of students, some of them unabashed Maoist sympathisers, allegedly shouted anti-India slogans.

NDA has been far more forthright about its intent to go after not just combatants in bushes but their intellectual guides in cities. It began with a crackdown on NGOs whom it accused of funding Maoists and other allegedly subversive causes. It stuck to its guns in the face of criticism that the drive was a campaign against dissent. Tuesday’s action shows it will stay the course.

