NAXALITE MOVEMENT 17 and the wide press publicity he and his organization received also became matters of severe comment. Apart from a great deal of personal abuse thrown against him, and much thai was written about his opportunism', ^betrayal' and so on., a major point his critics made was that Singh, with the help of the ruling party and the press, was appropriating the ''revolutionary tradition^ of the CPI (ML) which was now split into many groups and factions of which Singh's group was only one.44 There is no doubt that Singh's association with JP and the Janata was beneficial to both sides. On the Janata side, this provided some credibility to their claim that they represented the entire political spectrum of the country—from the extreme right (Jan Sangh) to the extreme left (Naxalites)—and in many meetings throughout the length and breadth of the country the Janata leaders read out statements of Singh to prove that point. This certainly helped in giving Janata the image of a party of national consensus against authoritarianism. Even before (he emergency, the support of the Singh group proved critical in creating a picture that theJP-led campaign, was a broadbased national movement at a time when the GPI (M), the largest leftwing party, while providing support from outside, was unwilling to formally enter his organization. This support was useful in silencing those who accused JP of leading a movement ofrightwing elements. On the other side, Singh's participation brought a great deal of support and sympathy for the plight of the Naxalite prisoners from the sarvodaya workers; and helped to establish his group as the foremost Naxalite group in the country. This close association with the Janata Party, in particular with its more reactionary elements represented by Charan Singh, later became a source of great embarrassment for the CPI (ML), when in government it followed reactionary anti-people policies. Opposition to this came even from within the ranks of CPI (ML); and eventually, in its review of the political situation in September 1977 the group was forced to reach the following conclusion : <\.. the disillusionment with the Janata party is also rapid, and as the economic and political crisis deepens, the people are bound to come in confrontation with the Janata party's government and this is bound to lead to an unprecedented people's upsurge. Considering all these aspects, our party, therefore withdraws the critical support it had extended to the Janata government earlier and it will heie-after pursue the line of basic opposition towards the same."46 The Bhojpur Campaign While the annihilation line of Mazumdar has been repudiated by a large majority of the Naxalites, it is still being followed and put into practice by the Naxalites of Bhojpur, a poor district in perhaps the poorest state of India, Bihar, which also happens to be the native district of Satya Narayan Singh. Although Singh broke away from Mazumdar in 1971, the Naxalites of Bhojpur, under the influence of a local teacher,