Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated Diwali with security personnel in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region on Sunday, continuing his long-standing tradition of spending the festival with the armed forces rather than in Delhi. The Prime Minister visited the CoBRA Operations Base at Karanpur in Bastar, where he shared the festival with jawans and saluted them for their sacrifices.
Mr Modi described the region as free from Left Wing Extremism, crediting the security forces for a victory that he said had been won over decades of Maoist terror. He said development was the way ahead for Bastar, a region that was once synonymous with the insurgency and is now being held up by the government as proof that the Maoist movement has been broken on the ground.
But the Prime Minister also sounded a note of caution. He warned that the end of armed Maoist insurgency did not mean the threat had disappeared, alleging that so-called dimagi Naxals — intellectual Naxals — had infiltrated political parties and organisations and were inciting people against the Constitution and democracy. The remark, made in Raipur, was among the sharpest he has aimed at critics of the government’s security policy.
The Prime Minister’s Diwali with the forces has become an annual ritual since he took office, taking him over the years to border posts, forward areas and insurgency-hit regions. The choice of Bastar this year carried a clear message: the government wants the region’s transformation from a Maoist stronghold to a development story to be the headline of this Diwali.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also spent the festival with the troops, celebrating Deepawali with personnel of the Trishakti Corps in the forward areas of Sikkim. Mr Singh visited Sherathang on Sunday, where he interacted with soldiers deployed along the frontier and extended festival greetings on behalf of the nation.
The Prime Minister also greeted Bharat Ratna and former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani on Sunday as the veteran BJP leader entered his 100th year, a milestone that drew warm messages from across the political spectrum.
For the jawans at Karanpur, the visit was the high point of their Diwali. The Prime Minister shared a meal with them, heard their accounts of operations in the region, and lit lamps with them at the base. As he left, his message was twofold: the battle in the forests of Bastar has been won, but the battle of ideas, he said, is still being fought.
