While demanding that all illegal weapons in the state be recovered to improve the law and order situation, the West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee stopped short of calling for a Central intervention in the state. A nine-member delegation of the WBPCC met Chidambaram at Raj Bhavan today and made suggestions on how to improve developmental work in the Maoist-hit areas.

“Central intervention is out of the question. There is a Supreme Court ruling and a lot of legal hassles for this. We have not made any such demand to the Union home minister,” said Pradip Bhattacharjee, working president of Pradesh Congress, after a half-an-hour meeting with Chidambaram.

“We believe that if the Centre can stress and convince the the state government to fish out the illegal arms, then only lawlessness in the state can be tackled,” Bhattacharjee said.

The Congress leaders, however, did not elaborate as to how this can be done. Interestingly, Bhattacharjee said this demand was made by Bhuniya, who some time back had raised the demand for Central intervention in the state.

Meanwhile, Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee had earlier stressed that a central security agency should be entrusted with the duty of confiscating all illegal arms.