The general secretary of the proscribed CPI(Maoist), Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju, was killed in an exchange of fire with the Chhattisgarh police on May 21 in the Indravati area of Abujhmad (the unknown hills). Not less than 26 members of his security posse/component, widely known as CC (central committee) protection company (Company No. 7 of People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army— PLGA), also got killed in the firefight, which continued for over three days. One jawan of district Narayanpur was martyred in the first burst of bullets from the Maoists. This operation was conducted exclusively by the District Reserve Guards (DRG) of Narayanpur, Bijapur, and Dantewada. The operation was planned and executed under the supervision of Prabhat Kumar, Superintendent of Police, Narayanpur, of the 2019 IPS batch.
In yet another tough operation, 31 Maoists were killed in a 21-day long joint operation conducted by the CRPF and DRG (and STF) on the steep Karregutta hills (spread over about 50 km x 10 km), which separate district Bijapur (of Chhattisgarh) from Telangana. As these hills were of great strategic importance for the Maoists, they planted a large number of IEDs (over 400 detected and diffused) to deter security forces from approaching them. The humidity was so intense that some jawans had to be evacuated by air due to exhaustion. The Superintendent of Police, Bijapur, Jitendra Yadav, from the 2018 IPS batch, demonstrated his capabilities in the successful execution of the operation and ensured proper coordination among the forces. One can gauge the importance of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) by the fact that over 50 battalions of them are deployed in Chhattisgarh, and they occupy the most forward posts.
Records show that Maoist violence has declined over the past many years. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) reduced the number of districts under its security-related expenditure (SRE) scheme from 72 in 10 states in 2021 to 58 (with 38 designated as LWE-affected) in eight states during a review in March 2024. In another review in April 2025, this number further reduced from 38 in eight states to 18 in seven states. The number of LWE-affected districts in Chhattisgarh reduced from 15 to 7 in the same period. While it does not seem the Maoist organisations have disappeared from the unclassified districts, their mass base and violence have surely declined
Over 420 Maoists (including some central committee and state committee members) have been killed in Chhattisgarh since early 2024. Last August, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that the Maoists would be eliminated from this country by March 2026. Since then, the anti-Maoist operations have been scaled up. Cooperation among central and State police forces has been enhanced. While the number of security camps has been increasing for a long time, the recent redeployment and establishment of camps in Abujhmad and south Bastar have filled many security vacuums that existed for years. This has given the security forces an operational edge and restricted the Maoists’ movement in the area.
Secondly, the DRG has improved the overall capacity of the forces to fight the guerrillas. The DRG jawans are locally recruited tribals familiar with the hilly and forested terrain, which is considered conducive for waging a guerrilla war. The DRG also has a sprinkling of surrendered cadres who have been inducted into the force (after completing regular training conducted by the police department) under the State’s rehabilitation policy. It is a sanctioned regular force that has evolved. The Bastar fighters force (2,100 strong), sanctioned during the previous Congress government for the entire Bastar range and Rajnandgaon, further enhanced the capacity to fight and launch independent operations. These sons of the soil have turned the tables in Bastar.
Thirdly, the use of drones for surveillance and digital wireless sets for secure communication has reduced casualties among forces. While there has been no improvement in the technology used for detecting IEDs, the installation of mobile towers in remote areas has improved actionable intelligence. Technology has improved operational efficiency. Thus, while the strong political will of the Centre and the State has generated synergy among the forces, the strengthening of the security infrastructure has given teeth to the anti-Maoist operations.
The Maoists, who entered Dandakaranya in 1980 and continued to expand, gaining strength militarily until 2010, admitted in the central committee (CC) review of December 2020 that their mass base has been diluting, desertion has been increasing, and their area of influence has been shrinking since 2011. Still, they did not change their central agenda of converting Dandakaranya and Bihar-Jharkhand into a base area, the PLGA into PLA, and the guerrilla war into a mobile war, using their three magic weapons: the party, the army, and the united front. However, more recently, in August 2024, the Politburo of the CPI (Maoist) said they were in a state of temporary setback and had retreated across the entire country. They decided to avoid the security forces encircling them (their leadership and cadres) by breaking up their formations into smaller units. Still, they resolved to attack the security forces wherever they were weak.
The Maoists have been continuously asking the government to create an atmosphere for initiating peace talks and stop operations. The CC members have not been able to meet and decide their future strategy, disclosed one of the DK special zonal committee (DKSZC) members, Rupesh alias Satish. However, the governments are not ready to budge from their deadline of eliminating Maoists by March 2026. They want Maoists to surrender unconditionally and join the mainstream. However, the killing of the Maoist’s general secretary has given them a big jolt. We have to wait for their next strategy after they elevate a CC member to the post of secretary general. They probably have two options: either to continue the war for some time and incur losses or unilaterally withdraw and seek a peaceful solution.
(Views are personal)
R K Vij is a former IPS officer.