Maoist comeback: Sushil Kumar Shinde overrules assessment by security establishment

NEW DELHI: Maoists could make a comeback in the new Telangana state, but a ‘political’ home minister in Sushil Kumar Shinde has overruled this assessment of his security establishment, taking a stand that Telangana was a political call and the government will now have to counter the Naxalite threat if it arose.

With the Cabinet giving a go-ahead to Telangana, the prospect of Naxals resurging in the new state seems the biggest challenge confronting the security agencies. A recent seized Naxal document of the proceedings of the 4th Central Committee meeting of CPI (Maoist) held earlier this year confirms that Naxals had backed the movement for a separate Telangana. “There are several potentialities for the (Naxal) movement to advance…in Telangana, the movement for a separate state is developing in militant forms,” the document reviewed by ET says. An MHA official said eight of the 10 districts in the proposed Telangana — Adilabad, Karimnag ar, Khammam, Mahaboobnagar, Medak, Nalgonda, Nizamabad and Warangal — are designated Left-Wing Extremism affected areas and hence covered under the ministry’s security related expenditure scheme.

The senior home ministry official said Shinde, however, was clear that once a “political decision” has been taken at the level of the Congress Working Committee, the home ministry’s initial objections on security grounds “do not stand”. “The Naxal problem is there. But Andhra Pradesh is one state where we have done excellent work in curbing Naxalism. I am quite confident that even after the formation of Telangana, they will completely cut down the activities of Naxalites,” Shinde said on Friday. Even the Srikrishna report in 2011 had said that the state, if formed, will become an epicentre for Maoist violence.

Ajay Sahani, executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management, said Maoists are expected to revive in the short-term but could fail to make a permanent comeback. “...given the social and economic conditions in Telangana with some of the development parameters here being even better than coastal Andhra, it will be difficult for Maoists to sustain in the region.”