Modi gives 'M-word'a miss at rallies

Dhanbad: Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not utter a word about the Maoist issue while addressing a public rally here on Tuesday, even as security personnel were engaged in an exchange of fire with extremists in Giridih, about 70 km from here.
No casualty was reported in the encounter, which took place an hour before polling at Rajdhanwar from where ex-chief minister and JVM(P) supremo Babulal Marandi is in the race.Maoists killed Marandi’s son Anup in 2007.
This was Modi's seventh election rally in the extremism-hit state within three weeks and all along he has kept mum about the issue, which his predecessor Manmohan Singh had in 2010 famously described as the biggest threat to internal security.
On Tuesday, Modi thanked people of Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir for high voter turnout, saying people on Monday defied terrorist threats and AK-47s to openly embrace democracy by participating in the biggest political rally in Srinagar since 1983. Three days back in Hazaribagh, Modi paid homage to slain Lt Col Sankalp Kumar (who hailed from Ranchi) and said terrorists in Kashmir tried to attack the Indian democracy.
However, he has, in what seems to be a conscious decision, chosen not to mention the ‘M’ word during his campaigning, although Jharkhand is one of the worst extremism-affected states and in 2013 recorded 383 Maoist-related incidents and 150 deaths, the highest for any state. Such is the situation in several parts of the state that police do not recommend travel by night.
The BJP, in its 60-page poll manifesto, devoted a paragraph to ‘solving the issue of extremism’ and said it would strive to put an end to the problem through administrative, social and economic and development measures. It, however, did not specifically mention ways in which it could make Jharkhand ‘extremism-free’.