Telangana Maoists Oppose Bid to Shun Armed Rebellion, Says Rupesh
Rupesh, who was a Maoist CC member and chief of military intelligence wing of the outlawed CPI (Maoist), on Friday surrendered along with 209 other Naxal cadres including many senior leaders in Bastar in Chhattisgarh.
Raipur: Takkallapalli Vasudev Rao alias Rupesh, linked to the attack on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on December 2, 2000, who surrendered on Friday, revealed that the Maoists’ Telangana committee had strongly opposed the majority opinion in the outlawed organisation to shun the armed struggle.
Speaking to a Hindi news portal, Rupesh said that several top Maoists, including general secretary Basavaraju, who was killed in an encounter in Abujhmad, Narayanpur district (south Bastar) in May, had supported Mallojula Venugopal Rao’s push to give up armed struggle and work within the mainstream to advance the cause of the people in the changed situation.
Venugopal, also known as Bhupati, member of the politburo and the central military commission, had surrendered in Maharashtra recently.
“While the majority of state and divisional committee leaders supported the shift away from armed struggle, the Telangana State Committee strongly opposed it, causing differences between the Telangana leadership and Venugopal. This disagreement led to a vertical split in the Maoist leadership and ultimately prompted Venugopal’s surrender,” the surrendered Maoist said.
“The process to seek consensus among the top Maoists on renouncing armed struggle began in May-June this year. I met several senior cadres individually to discuss and build consensus, but a Central Committee meeting could not take place due to intensified anti-Naxal operations,” he said.
He also noted that Union home minister Amit Shah’s March 31, 2026, deadline to end Naxalism created psychological pressure on top Maoists, intensifying confusion over the movement’s future. Coupled with disrupted communication among senior leaders, this has pushed the banned outfit into disarray, he indicated.
Rupesh dismissed reports that Thippiri Tirupati alias Devuji had been appointed as a successor to Basavaraju. He clarified that the central committee had not ratified the appointment. He said the CC has not convened for a long time due to intensified counterinsurgency operations in Left-wing extremism-affected areas.