New Delhi, Oct 31 : Reacting sharply to Home Minister P. Chidambaram's comment that the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) till recently considered Maoists as "comrades in arms", the Left party's head Saturday said he "has chosen to ignore the history of the Maoist movement".

"Far from being the CPI-M's 'comrades in arms', the Maoists have always been unremittingly hostile to the CPI-M)," party general secretary Prakash Karat said in a statement.

"After they (Maoists) split away from the CPI-M in the late 1960s, the ultra-Left elements in West Bengal targeted the party and hundreds of CPI-M cadres and supporters lost their lives due to their depredations in the early 1970s," Karat said.

Expressing surprise the home minister had "chosen to ignore the history of the Naxalite/Maoist movement", Karat said it was "amusing to see Mr. Chidambaram claiming that the CPI-M saw the Maoists as their allies in fighting the bourgeois Congress".

Taking a political swipe at the CPI-M, Chidambaram Friday said: "Till the last session of parliament, CPI-M had different views of Maoists. They thought they (Maoists) were comrades-in arms fighting the bourgeois Congress. They have woken up now."

Karat refuted the home minister's claims saying they were "misplaced" and the "fact is that the earlier (United Progressive Alliance) UPA government led by the Congress was propped up for four years with the support of the CPI-M." (IANS)