New Delhi: Union Home Minister P Chidambaram has reportedly offered to resign taking responsibility for the Dantewada massacre in which the Maoists butchered 76 security personnel. However, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has rejected Chidambaram's offers to resign.
Chidambaram reportedly met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh taking "full responsibility" for the Dantewada attack on a CRPF patrol party and offered to step down.
Sources say that a section within the Congress party has been unhappy with the way Chidambaram has handled the Maoist issue so far including his tough talk on the rebels and his friction with West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
When the Home Minister came back from his Dantewada tour he reportedly met the Prime Minister and told him that if he (Prime Minister) was dissatisfied with his performance, he was ready to step down.
Earlier, on Friday while attending the Valour Day function of the CRPF, Chidambaram said, "I salute the CRPF. I promise that government will always stand by you. Where does the buck stop after Dantewada? The buck stops at my desk. I accept full responsibility of what happened in Dantewada. I told this to the Prime Minister as well."
In the past whenever there was talk of all-out action to control Maoists, it was usually tempered by the Congress party that the issue it was a socio-economic one and had to be dealt with in such a manner.
Many leaders had been maintaining that Maoists were our own people and so they should not be dealt with in the same firm way as one would deal with terrorists.
But now that stand seems to have been diluted a bit within the Congress following the massacre of the CRPF team on Tuesday.
The party, too, has begun to realise that to go soft in the weeding out Maoists will not really go down very well.
So Chidambaram's offer to step down accepting complete responsibility is seen as a political masterstroke by him and also a plus point in his favour.
A large group of Maoists had ambushed the CPRF team belonging to the 62 Battalion between 6 AM and 7 AM on Tuesday between Chintalnar and Tademetla villages in Sukma block of Dantewada district of Chhattigarh when the security personnel were on the way to Tademetla in a vehicle.
The Maoists, believed to be between 200-1000, first triggered a land mine destroying the vehicle carrying the security personnel. In the ensuing gunbattle 75 CRPF men and one local police constable were killed.
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