After decades of bearing the brunt of Left-Wing Extremism, Chhattisgarh now stands at the centre of what security agencies describe as a decisive phase in the fight against Maoist insurgency. With the deadline for ending the insurgency drawing closer, official assessments indicate that 2025 has been the most damaging year yet for the outlawed movement, with 10 of its top leaders killed in encounters across four states.
Of the 10 senior Maoist leaders neutralised this year, five were killed in separate encounters in Chhattisgarh’s Gariaband and Narayanpur districts. The remaining five were eliminated in coordinated operations conducted by police forces in Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, with support from central armed police forces. Those killed included the general secretary, central committee members and politburo figures of the CPI (Maoist), dealing a severe blow to the organisation’s command structure.
The most significant setback for the insurgent group came in May with the killing of Nambala Keshav Rao alias Basavaraju, the Maoists’ general secretary. A BTech graduate and a founding member of the central military committee, Basavaraju was regarded as a key strategist in explosives, IED deployment and armed training. He was killed along with 26 cadres, including 12 women. Linked to high-profile incidents such as the Jehanabad jail break and a major arms loot in Odisha, Basavaraju carried a cumulative reward of ₹1.33 crore.
Earlier, on January 19, Chhattisgarh Police neutralised Jayaram Reddy alias Chalapathi, a central committee member, in the Kulrigat reserve forest along the Chhattisgarh–Odisha border. In September, another central committee member, Modem Balakrishnan, aged 58, was killed along with 10 associates in a separate operation.
Operations outside Chhattisgarh further weakened the Maoist hierarchy. In Jharkhand, police and CRPF CoBRA units killed central committee member Pragya Manjhi alias Vivek and seven others in April in the Gulu Hills area. Another major success followed in September, when central committee member Sahdev Soren and two associates were killed in Hazaribagh, with AK-47 rifles recovered from the site.
Andhra Pradesh Police also recorded significant successes. The elite Greyhounds force killed senior leader Gajarala Ravi alias Uday, secretary of the Andhra Pradesh–Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee, along with two wanted women cadres. Later, on November 18, police neutralised Madvi Hidma — the youngest among the top Maoist leaders killed this year — in a brief but intense encounter lasting nearly two hours, in which his wife and security detail were also killed.
In Odisha, a major operation on December 25 in Kandhamal district led to the killing of Ganesh Uike, a central committee member, Odisha state committee secretary and Maoist spokesperson. Carrying a reward of ₹1.1 crore, Uike was among six Maoists killed in the operation, including women cadres and operatives from Sukma and Bijapur districts.
Officials said security forces had to battle for over 15 hours in dense forest terrain to neutralise senior leaders such as Uike and Chalapathi in separate encounters.
Senior journalist Rajat Vajpayee told The Statesman that the current phase marks a qualitative shift in counter-insurgency operations. “Security forces are performing better than ever before. The elimination and surrender of senior Maoist leaders have deeply demoralised lower-level cadres,” he said. Vajpayee added that intelligence generated from surrendered cadres has played a crucial role. “Operations planned on the basis of actionable inputs from surrendered militants have yielded exceptionally strong results, accelerating the collapse of the Maoist leadership structure.”
Bastar Range Inspector General P. Sundarraj said Maoist leaders who rise to central committee or politburo levels typically operate across multiple states and carry rewards exceeding ₹1 crore. “Such cadres possess extensive operational experience. Their elimination has a cascading impact on coordination, morale and recruitment within the organisation,” he said.
A senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said security forces are intensifying efforts to neutralise nine remaining top Maoist leaders, including Ganapathy, Mallaraj Reddy, Prabhakar, Papa Rao, Sanjeev, Misir Besra, Manjhi Dada, Sannu Reddy and Mohan Reddy.
“These leaders have been masterminding violence across Bastar, Telangana, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. A coordinated, multi-state strategy is being implemented to dismantle their strongholds and curb their influence,” the official said.
With sustained, intelligence-driven operations continuing across the Chhattisgarh–Odisha–Jharkhand–Andhra Pradesh corridor, security officials believe 2025 has fundamentally altered the balance against Maoist insurgency, marking the sharpest erosion of its leadership in recent history and bringing the movement closer to organisational collapse than ever before.