Jagdalpur: Home Minister Amit Shah, who concluded his first visit to this erstwhile ‘red’ pocket borough after the end of Left-wing extremism, on Tuesday listed four dates as milestones in the journey of making Bastar Naxal-free, the first being December 23, 2024, when the BJP government was elected in Chhattisgarh; August 24, 2024, when the deadline to root out Naxalism was announced as March 31, 2026; 31 March 2026, before which Naxalism would have been completely uprooted; and May 19, 2026, which launched an initiative aimed at doorstep delivery of all government benefits to the tribals of Bastar by renovating security camps into one-stop public service centres. “It is a matter of great pride that Naxalism has been completely eliminated,” Shah said. But it also said that a major obstacle in this journey till December 13, 2023 was the lack of cooperation from the previous Congress government (led by Bhupesh Baghel) in Chhattisgarh. “I can now say without any hesitation that other non-BJP governments have cooperated in the fight against Naxalism, but the Congress government in Chhattisgarh has not,” he said at a press conference in Jagdalpur. “After the BJP government was elected in Chhattisgarh on December 13, 2024, we intensified our efforts. After reviewing the situation of Left Wing Extremism in the annual conference of police chiefs of all states on August 24, 2024, March 31, 2026 was declared the deadline to make the country Naxalism-free. The target was achieved even before the deadline.” The latest milestone he mentioned is May 19, 2026, when the initiative to create 70 Veer Shaheed Gunda Dhur ‘Seva Dera’ (public service camps) and pursue integrated development across Bastar was launched. He said, “Contrary to the narrative propagated by leftist intellectuals that Naxalism was due to lack of development in the affected areas, the reality is that Naxalism was a result of lack of development.” “There were far more backward areas in the country…Why is it that Naxalism did not raise its head in these areas? Other areas eventually developed, but Bastar remained backward and the local people were deprived of basic development.”..” “Now that Bastar has become Naxal-free, an initiative to pursue integrated development has been launched… It aims to compensate the local people who have been deprived of the benefits for the last five decades with doorstep delivery of government schemes and benefits.”