CPI (Maoist) suffers from leadership crisis due to 'brain-loss', lack of education: Reports

Documents maintained by the Chhattisgarh police have revealed that the alive and active CPI (Maoist) politburo members have been reduced to merely four at present.

As per a report in The Times of India, the leadership now comprises of general secretary Namballa Keshava Rao Rao alias Basavraju, Mupalla Laxman Rao alias Ganpathy, Mallajulla Venugopal Rao alias Sonu, and Misir Besra. This drop from 16 members in 2004 comes as a result of killings, arrests, surrenders, and illness-related deaths.

What the body is suffering from more than the loss of Maoist boots in operations is reportedly "brain-loss" owing to the advanced age of its members, killings, and natural deaths.

Among its politburo members, Keshava Rao is 67 years old, Ganpathy is 75, Sonu and Besra are aged 62 and 64 respectively.

On the other hand, the central committee, which is the other decision making body of CPI (Maoist) has only 11-12 active members, apart from the Politburo members.

As per the documents accessed by TOI, the active members include include Thippari Tirupathi alias Devji (64); Kadari Satyanarayana Reddy alias Kosa (72), Ganesh Uike (60) and Pullari Prasad Rao alias Chandranna (60). Meanwhile, Patiram Manjhi alias Anil da, who is believed to be in hiding; Modem Balakrishna and Gajarla Ravi, all central committee members are not mentioned in the Chhattisgarh police's list of "active/alive" top Maoist leaders.

A senior officer of the central intelligence establishment told the publication that even though the central committee is undergoing new additions from time to time, they are not educated, unlike the old leadership that had an educational background and kept the Naxal movement alive.

In 2004, the central committee had 32 members, including 16 from the politburo committee. However, over the years several politburo members have died, or have been arrested.