M.P. Nathanael | As the March 2026 Deadline Looms, Is Maoist Menace On The Wane In India?

With the death of top Maoist leaders Katta Ramchandra Reddy, 63, and Kadari Satyanarayan Reddy, 68, in an encounter with the security forces in the Narayanpur area on the Chhattisgarh-Maharashtra border, the Maoist movement suffered yet another setback and serves as a bellwether to its imminent death well before the Union home minister’s March 31, 2026 deadline.

The two central committee members carried a bounty of Rs 1.8 crores each. The death of top Maoist leaders recently, including its general secretary Basvaraj on May 21, alongside a series of surrenders in batches has depleted its strength to the extent that desperate missives are being shot off to the Chhattisgarh government and the police to pause the ongoing operations for talks. A total of 71 Maoists, 30 of them carrying a combined bounty of Rs 60 lakhs, surrendered before the CRPF and the Dantewada SP on September 24.

After their displacement from their Karregutta forest base in Abhujmarh in April 2025, in which they suffered heavy casualties, the Maoists have been on the run, having split into small groups. Massive operations launched by the COBRA unit, the CRPF and District Reserve Guards, largely comprising local youth and the Chhattisgarh police, had a long-lasting effect on the survival of the outlawed outfit. While many may have slipped into neighbouring Telangana and taken shelter, some chose to stay put until they were hunted down and killed in encounters.

With their leadership almost depleted, the rank-and-file are in disarray. During the last few months, nine of their top leaders including the general secretary Basvaraju were killed in various operations. Sujata, widow of Kishenji, who was killed in a joint operation by COBRA and CRPF in West Midnapore in 2011, surrendered in Telangana on September 13. Many top elderly leaders died of various ailments in recent years for want of medical help as they were confined to their forest hideouts, encircled by the security forces.

That the Maoists’ morale is at its lowest ebb is evident not only in the large surrenders but also in the overtures for cessation of operations for peace talks. The operations by the security forces even during monsoon sent clear signals that their days are numbered, leaving no choice but to surrender and avail of the lucrative incentives offered to them.

With the appointment of Tippiri Tirupati as general secretary recently, there are rumblings of discontent in the lower ranks of their claims being overlooked for top positions. The leadership in the central committee is largely with those from Telangana, with just two each from Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. The much-dreaded Madavi Hidma, from Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, secretary of Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee, has been evading the security forces’ dragnet for some years. As commander of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army, he led several attacks on the security forces. He remains on their radar and anytime soon may be reported killed.

The brewing discontent is also evident from conflicting signals to the government and senior police officials. While Venugopal Rao alias Abhay, the Maoists’ spokesperson, in an August 15 release now made public, appealed for a temporary halt in the armed struggle, another letter supposedly emailed September 20 by the two top slain leaders before their death September 22, countered it saying it was not the Maoists’ view but Abhay’s personal opinion. It added: “The issue of surrendering to the government is being spread merely for confusion and diversion. Our party is only interested in resisting the government’s surrender policy as well its reactionary, repressive line. The party’s opposition to surrender and collaboration with the enemy is both political and ideological.”

While the security forces deployed in the Maoist-affected states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are aggressively hunting Maoists in the dense forests, backed by a robust intelligence machinery, more CRPF battalions are being pulled out from Jammu and Kashmir after the peaceful conclusion of the Amarnath Yatra and rushed to these states to tighten the stranglehold on the Maoists. The heavy concentration of the security forces is bound to yield results, with many coming out of their hideouts to surrender or face the bullets and get killed. They have no other choice. The CRPF is the lead force in combating the Maoist menace, with 82 battalions deployed in the Maoist-effected states.

There is meanwhile a move to set up a second Jungle Warfare College in Karreguta hills, once a Maoist stronghold. A massive force of nearly 10,000 personnel drawn from the Chhattisgarh police and Central paramilitary forces, including the CRPF, was inducted into the dense forests around Karreguta hills in April this year under Operation Black Forest. In the 21-day unceasing operation, 31 Maoists were killed and over 200 safe bunkers destroyed. The Maoists were displaced from their fortress once and for all.

The relevance of opening another Jungle Warfare College when there is already a Counter-Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College in Kanker seems to make little sense. While the Union home ministry has set a deadline of March 31, 2026 to wipe out Maoist extremism from the country once and for all, and the security forces have taken determined steps towards that end, there is no good reason to open another training centre.

The present ground realities indicate that better days are ahead, when Maoists will be completely rooted out. Between January 2024 and September 22, 2025, 435 Maoists have been killed in Bastar, and the count is still on. Since it would be unduly optimistic to assume there will be no Maoist elements left in the states after that, all that will be needed, after Maoism has died down, is a robust intelligence set-up to monitor any signs of a revival of Maoism in these states.

The writer is a retired CRPF IGP