Kumar Bahukhandi
Chhattisgarh Deputy Chief Minister Vijay SharmaCredit: X/@vijaysharmacg
The Salwa Judum movement started in Bastar as a response to the atrocities committed by the Naxals, he said.
Pune: Chhattisgarh deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma on Friday August 22 , 2025 has targeted Congress-led alliance’s vice presidential candidate Justice B Sudershan Reddy over the 2011 judgement banning the Salwa Judum movement, claiming that a surge in Naxal violence followed the decision
“After the 2011 decision, Bastar was left terrified. A wave of killings by Naxals swept across the region, and thousands of people were victimised. Many were shot dead, maimed, or strangulated,” Sharma said, delivering a lecture on ‘Overcoming the Naxal Challenge in Chhattisgarh’ organised by Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini here on Friday.
“I would like to point out that the judge who delivered that order is today the vice-presidential nominee of the Congress. People of Bastar have asked me whether this VP nominee is the same judge. They remembered his name. How can anyone accept such a person?” said the BJP leader. The Salwa Judum movement started in Bastar as a response to the atrocities committed by the Naxals, he said.
“Villagers set up their own camps to protect themselves from the Naxals, without any initial involvement of the government. Later, the government began providing some assistance. The movement was entirely people-driven.
The term Salwa Judum means “”restoration of peace,” he said. The people associated with the movement opposed the Naxals and asked them to leave their villages. Once the Naxals began attacking these camps, the government started appointing members of the movement as Special Police Officers, Sharma said. In 2011, Justice Reddy delivered a verdict declaring that the setting up of Salwa Judum was wrong, describing it as an unconstitutional parallel system, and ordered that it be disbanded, he said.
The decision was not based on sound legal reasoning but was largely an academic one, said Sharma. “People of Bastar still say that while the Supreme Court heard arguments from petitioners in Delhi and from the police, their own voices were never heard. The Court delivered a judgment without listening to those who were most affected,” he said.
Sharma also said that the BJP government in Chhattisgarh has resolved to wipe out armed Naxalism from Bastar by March 2026, as announced by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The state government is committed to implementing the Indian Constitution in every corner of Bastar, he said. “Naxals are not fighting for anybody’s rights. They only believe in the ideology of Maoism, which says that power comes from the barrel of of the gun, and with this ideology, they are trying to create terror among the locals,” Sharma said.
The government is doing everything necessary to bring those who have joined the Naxal movement into the mainstream, he added.
( Source-PTI)
