NEW DELHI: A day after Union Minister Amit Shah rejected the Naxalites’ ‘ceasefire’ offer, a dossier prepared by the security and intelligence agencies revealed that after a series of arrests, surrenders and encounters, the top leadership of the Left Wing Extremists has now been dwindling with only 13 figures in its apex body - four members of the Politburo and nine members of the Central Committee.
According to officials, the goal of eliminating armed Naxals by March 31, 2026, could be met much earlier, possibly by the end of this year.
However, they added that a few of the members of People Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) are still at large and they might try to escalate violence, but they too would meet the same fate. The dossier states that Madvi Hidma, the most-wanted Maoist leader believed to be heading the outfit, has been unable to maintain contact with the remaining top leadership.
At its peak by mid-2000, the Politburo and the Central Committee of the CPI (Maoist) had over two dozen members, who provided ideological base and formulated strategy for armed struggle, and kept the LWE network operative in more than 10 states of the country. But over the years, with better intelligence gathering and effective anti-Naxal operations by security forces, their leadership and support base have eroded, officials said.
Now with the elimination of high-value Naxal leaders in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand, including general secretary Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju, Chalapati and Modem Balakrishna, only a few aged senior operatives are surviving, they said.
The only remaining challenge is the PLGA, if security forces neutralise it in the coming days, India could, for the first time in about 60 years, be free of the Naxal chain of command.
Senior leaders such as Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad (killed in 2010), Kishanji alias Koteshwar Rao (killed in 2011) and Kottam Sudarshan (died in 2023). The year 2025 saw major successes on the part of the security forces, as Basavaraju alias Nambala Keshava Rao, Chalapati and Modem Balakrishna were among those killed.
“The Politburo of CPI (Maoist) has now been struggling to find ideological leaders. Only a few like Muppala Laxman Rao alias Ganapati, the acting General Secretary; Misir Besra, a senior ideologue; Mallojula Venugopal alias Bhupathi, an influential strategist; and Malla Raji Reddy alias Sangram are surviving and trying to continue with their activities in the Red Zone,” said a senior security official.
The officials, quoting the dossier, said that there are currently around 800–1,000 armed cadres active, which is far less than the 6,000 to 8,000 nearly a decade ago. “But still they can be a potent threat, particularly in dense forest areas- Abujhmaad and Bastar, where the terrain is to their advantage,” the official said, while adding that, but still, operations based on actionable intelligence might give the desired results.
