There is also clear intent to take the ‘struggle’ forward at a different level. As CPI-Maoist politburo member Koteshwar Rao alias Kishan, who heads the outfit’s operations in Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal, stated in an interview published on October 8, "Despite our strongholds, the Revolutionary People’s Committee has not emerged properly. We still need to take the movement forward". The article also noted that, "Unlike Bastar and Dankaranya regions in Chhattisgarh, the Maoists have been unable to complete ‘area domination’ in Jharkhand. In Chhattisgarh, ‘taking control’ of the tribal belt stretching from Abujhmadh, Bastar and Dandakaranya, the Maoists have established departments dealing with defence, health, development, personal relations, legal assistance, education and culture to run their so-called ‘revolutionary government’." The Maoist leader also rejected the home minister Chidambaram’s October 7 call to lay down arms and abjure violence, asserting that "armed struggle against the system will continue."
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eanwhile, reports suggest that the union government is planning to launch ‘all out operations’ against the Maoists in the first half of November 2009 [the scheduled has been repeatedly pushed back since rumours of such action first became rife in July]. The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), in a meeting chaired by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on October 8, is believed to have sanctioned a ‘comprehensive approach’ to deal with the LWE. According to the ‘action plan’, the union government has adopted the ‘clear and hold’ doctrine, requiring SFs to pro-actively engage with the extremists, venturing deep into their strongholds to clear these, quite in contrast with the earlier approach, where the forces’ actions were principally defensive or retaliatory. The Central Para Military Forces (CPMFs) and state police forces are particularly to focus on the Jharkhand-West Bengal-Orissa and Chhattisgarh-Orissa-Andhra Pradesh tri-junctions – the regions of the most intensive Maoist concentration and activity, to prevent any attempt by the rebels to slip from one zone to another.