Who was Basavaraju, the Maoist chief killed in Chhattisgarh encounter?

CPI (Maoist) chief Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju, with ₹2.02 crore bounty, is killed in a Chhattisgarh encounter today. He was seen as key planner behind deadly Maoist attacks across India

In a major success for security forces, top Maoist leader Nambala Keshava Rao, widely known as Basavaraju, was killed in an encounter in the Abujhmad forests of Chhattisgarh on Wednesday. The operation, which led to the death of 28 Maoists, including Basavaraju, is being hailed as one of the most significant anti-Maoist successes in recent years. 

Basavaraju, general secretary of the banned CPI (Maoist), was considered the most influential figure in the insurgent outfit. His death is being seen as a crippling blow to the Maoist movement.   

 

Who was Basavaraju?

Basavaraju was reportedly the key strategist behind some of the deadliest Maoist attacks in India. He was reportedly behind the 2010 Dantewada massacre, where 76 CRPF personnel were killed, and the 2013 Jhiram Ghati ambush in Chhattisgarh, which targeted senior Congress leaders. 

 

Until his death, he served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the CPI (Maoist), overseeing ambushes, tactical operations, and long-term military strategies. He also managed intelligence and logistics and once led the Dandakaranya forest division, a Maoist stronghold. 

Security agencies had limited and outdated information about him. He was elusive, had no recent photographs, and operated using multiple aliases — Ganganna, Krishna, Narasimha, and Prakash.

 

From engineering graduate to extremist leader

Born on July 10, 1955, in Jiyyannapeta village in Andhra Pradesh’s Srikakulam district, Basavaraju belonged to an ordinary family. He earned a BTech degree from the Regional Engineering College (now NIT) in Warangal and even represented Andhra Pradesh at the national level in volleyball. 

It was during his student years that he got involved in leftist politics. He was arrested once in 1980 after a clash with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad members. That same year, he formally joined the People’s War, marking the beginning of his 35-year journey in the Maoist movement. 

He rose through the ranks, joining the CPI-ML (People’s War) central committee in 1992 and later becoming secretary of the Central Military Commission after the merger that formed CPI (Maoist) in 2004.   

 

Basavaraju’s rise to the top

In 2018, the CPI (Maoist) officially announced that Basavaraju had replaced long-time general secretary Mupalla Laxman Rao, alias Ganapathy. While he had taken over leadership responsibilities earlier in 2017 due to Ganapathy’s declining health, the transition was kept under wraps until a public statement was issued in November 2018. 

Basavaraju’s promotion marked the first leadership change in the outfit in 14 years. Ganapathy, the founding general secretary after the merger of the People’s War Group and the Maoist Communist Centre, is believed to have fled to the Philippines.

Basavaraju, meanwhile, was not only the party’s top leader but also a Politburo member, part of the Standing Committee, Central Committee, and an editorial board member of the party’s publication Awam-e-Jung. 

At the time of his death, he carried a reward of ₹2.02 crore on his head, one of the highest for any Maoist leader. His death may mark the beginning of the end of the decades-long insurgency, potentially aligning with Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s target of ending Maoist violence by March next year.

 

[With agency inputs]