Communist Party of India: Maoist

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This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Additional information may please be sent as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.

2021

Ageing leadership, depleted politburo

Bharti Jain, Nov 22, 2021: The Times of India

The arrest of CPI (Maoist) politburo member Prashant Bose, alias Kishenda, along with his wife and central committee member Sheela Marandi in Jharkhand, immediately followed by the killing of another central committee member Milind Teltumbde in an encounter in Gadchiroli, Maharashtra, is being seen by counterinsurgency experts as the latest blow to an ageing leadership with the politburo now down to five members.

Even before the latest killing and arrests, some of the CPI(Maoist) central committee members had either died or were apprehended during the course of the year. These include Ramakrishna alias Saket and Haribhushan, both of whom died earlier this year due to medical reasons, and BG Krishnamurthy who was recently arrested in Kerala.

As per a senior IPS officer engaged in counter-Left wing extremism operations, with the death and arrests of key CPI(Maoist) leaders over the years, the “active” strength of the politburo, the highest decision-making body of the outfit, has shrunk to five and that of the central committee to 21.

The CPI(Maoist) politburo now effectively has five seniormost leaders — N Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju who now leads the outfit; general secretary Mupalla Lakshamana Rao alias Ganapathy who is now relegated to more of a ‘mentoring’ role; Misir Besra who was once jailed but then freed in a daring jailbreak by his cadres; M Venugopal Rao; and Katakam Sudharshan, who is also in charge of ‘urban warfare’ operations of CPI(Maoist).

The CPI(Maoist) central committee comprises 27 members, of which one was killed (Teltumbde), two died due to poor health (Ramakrishna and Haribhushan) and three were arrested this year (Kishen-da, Sheela Marandi and Krishnamurthy).

Among the 27 central committee members, 12 hail from Telangana; four from Jharkhand; three each from Andhra Pradesh and Bihar; two each from West Bengal and Maharashtra; and one from Karnataka. “Not a single member is below the age of 50 years. As many as 60% of the members are aged between 50 and 60 years and 40% above 60 years. As for the younger leaders of CPI(Maoist) who may one day be promoted to the central committee, they have mostly risen from the soil and are largely from the Abujmarh area, with total entrenchment of CPI(Maoist) now limited to the area along Sukma-Bijapur border,” an officer who has been closely associated with anti-LWE operations told TOI.