Top Maoist leader, wife surrender

: A key member of the banned CPI (Maoist) Central Committee surrendered before the Telangana Director General of Police (DGP), M Mahendar Reddy here Wednesday, along with his wife.

Sudhakar and his wife decided to give themselves up as they were frustrated with the 'wrong trends' developing in the outfit and also due to their health problems, Reddy told reporters.

Sudhakar carries a reward of Rs 1.25 crore on his head in Jharkhand region and Rs 25 lakh in Telangana, while his wife carries a reward of Rs 10 lakh on her head.

The DGP said Sudhakar had disclosed that there were internal differences among top leaders and also between leaders of local tribes and Telangana leaders.

Sudhakar also revealed that Maoists were ill-treating women cadres and putting them under all sorts of pressure.

Due to the domination of the male cadres, some women were committing suicide, he said.

Sudhakar also said the functioning of the CPI (Maoist) leadership in Bihar and Jharkhand was totally antagonistic to revolutionary ideology and not people centric.

The party functioning had deteriorated and was more on the lines of criminal gangs who loot people and amass wealth for their development, using the party as a platform, Reddy said.

The DGP said that after Sudhakar's surrender, the CPI (Maoist) Central Committee has 20 members, the Polit Bureau seven members and the Central Military Commission, four.

Sudhakar also said that many cadres, sensing the fast deteriorating standards in the functioning of the CPI (Maoist) due to lumpanisation trends,were willing to give up extremism.

Reddy said the party was unable to conduct or implement any programmes based on Marxist Leninst Maoist ideology in their Eastern Regional Bureau area.

Most of the leadership and cadres were interested only in making money, he said on the current status of the party.

The DGP asked other Central Committee members to surrender and join the mainstream and added that most of the CC members were suffering from age related healthproblems.

In their Eastern Regional Bureau area, the total armed underground cadre strength was about 500 while in Dandkaranya, the armed cadre strength is about 2,000 and militia strength, about 7,000.

However, in Sukma and Bijapur districts (of Chhattisgarh) militia is strong, Reddy said.

The DGP said Sudhakar had grasped the reality that the erstwhile Maoist Communist Centre cadres are autocratic and encouraged lumpen elements in the party, who worked only to provide financial aid to their families by extorting huge sums of money from contractors and businessmen as 'party levy'.

The couple also disclosed that there are groups in the party on caste basis.

Nepotism and regionalism which had crept into party organisation roots was also the reason for them to surrender, the top police official said.