The prime minister Manmohan Singh has convened an all-party meeting in the Capital today to discuss ways to tackle the Maoist menace in the backdrop of killing of senior Congress leaders in a Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh last month.

 

The meeting, also to be addressed by home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, is expected to work towards evolving a consensus on the strategy to deal with the challenge posed by Left wing extremism.

 

A decision in this regard was taken at the meeting of the UPA coordination committee last week, which was attended by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, NCP president Sharad Pawar, National Conference chief Farooq Abdullah and IUML chief E Ahamed.

 

The Prime Minister had told the chief ministers' conference on internal security last Friday that the government's two-pronged anti-Maoist strategy of sustained operations and addressing development issues needed to be strengthened.Maoists had ambushed a convoy of Congress leaders in Bastar district on May 25, killing 27 people including PCC chief Nand Kumar Patel, his son Dinesh, senior Congress leader Mahendra Karma and ex-Member of Legislative Assembly Uday Mudaliyar.

 

Parliamentary affairs minister Kamal Nath had termed the incident as "an attack on very foundations of democracy and entire political system" and said it called for an all-party meeting.