Naxalites Launch Armed Opposition to Parliamentary Elections

This article was published on Telegraph India..

The Red Trap: Did the Centre focus so much on averting 26/11-style attacks that it ignored the Maoist threat?

Sujan Dutta and G.S. Mudur report

Maoists attacked security forces, detonated landmines and raided polling parties from Gaya in Bihar to Gadchiroli in Maharashtra, marking the geographical spread of the insurgents who had called for a boycott of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.

Despite the deployment of better-armed central paramilitary forces, Indian Air Force helicopters and intensified patrols, the Communist Party of India (Maoist) took on the might of the security forces in what it considers its turf, spanning most of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh.

The attacks resulted in the death of 19 people, including eight civilians, and disrupted the polling process in 71 of 76,000 polling stations that were considered under Naxalite threat, Election Commission officials said tonight. The first phase of polling today covered 124 parliamentary constituencies, involving 185,000 polling stations across 14 states and two Union territories.