CPI (Maoist) General Secretary Nambala Keshava Rao Killed In Encounter in Chhattisgarh

Hyderabad: The outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) suffered a serious setback when its general secretary Nambala Keshava Rao and 26 other comrades were killed in an encounter with security forces in the forest of Abujhmad in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district on Wednesday (May 21) morning.

This is the first time in the over-four-decade history of the Maoist party that its top-most leader was killed in an encounter.

His death was confirmed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah in posts on X.

The prime minister said he was “proud of our forces for this remarkable success”. “Our government is committed to eliminating the menace of Maoism and ensuring a life of peace and progress for our people,” he added.

Shah wrote:

“A landmark achievement in the battle to eliminate Naxalism [a term used interchangeably with Maoists]. Today, in an operation in Narayanpur, Chhattisgarh, our security forces have neutralised 27 dreaded Maoists, including Nambala Keshav Rao, alias Basavaraju, the general secretary of CPI-Maoist, top most leader, and the backbone of the Naxal movement. This is the first time in the three decades of Bharat's battle against Naxalism that a general secretary ranked leader has been neutralised by our forces. I applaud our brave security forces and agencies for this major breakthrough.”

In a communication to The Wire earlier, P. Sundarraj, inspector general of police of the Bastar region in Chhattisgarh where the encounter took place, said the security forces had achieved ‘historic success’ during an encounter in a region straddling the Narayanpur, Bijapur and Dantewada districts.

So far, a total of 27 Maoist bodies and a large number of weapons have been recovered during the operation.

Based on intelligence inputs about the Maoist party’s central committee and politburo members, as well as senior cadre of its Maad (another name for Abujhmad) division, Sundarraj said District Reserve Guard teams from Narayanpur, Dantewada, Bijapur and Kondagaon were despatched to Abujhmad.

After reviewing the facts and information obtained from this crucial operation, which has been going on for several days, it is assessed that several Maoist cadres have been either killed or seriously injured, he also said.

The CPI (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, a parliamentary left party, called Keshava Rao's killing a part of the “extra-judicial killings” that it said has been officially legitimised in the name of Operation Kagar.

CPI(ML) strongly condemns the cold-blooded extra-judicial killing of the General Secretary of CPI(Maoist) Comrade Keshav Rao and other Maoist activists and Adivasis in Narayanpur-Bijapur.

From the celebratory post of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, it is clear that the state is… pic.twitter.com/g2YSKnVzEy

— CPIML Liberation (@cpimlliberation) May 21, 2025

Sixty-eight-year-old Keshava Rao took over the reins of the CPI (Maoist) from Muppala Lakshmana Rao alias Ganapathi after the latter stepped down due to old age in 2018.

Incidentally, Lakshmana Rao was the first general secretary of the party after the merger of the People's War (PW) with the Maoist Communist Centre in 2004.

Keshava Rao, who carried a reward of Rs 1.5 crore on his head, went by several aliases including Basavaraju, Ganganna, Prakash, Krishna, Vijay, Keshav, Raju and Umesh. He was an expert in the use of improvised explosive devices and a mastermind of guerilla warfare.

He was the head of the party's central military commission and central committee and was a politburo member.

He had led the landmine attack on a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) contingent in Chintalnar in Chhattisgarh in 2020 that resulted in the death of 75 CRPF personnel. He also led the ambush of a Congress convoy in Jhiram Ghati in 2013, when several senior party leaders were killed.

The latest encounter in Abujhmad follows another major operation by security forces in the Karregutta hills along the Chhattisgarh-Telangana border that claimed the lives of 31 Maoists.

Keshava Rao was a native of Jitannapeta village in Andhra Pradesh’s Srikakulam district. He was a student of the Regional Engineering College, now the National Institute of Technology, in Warangal. He was attracted to the PW while pursuing his M.Tech at the institute in 1984. He was one of the PW’s founding members.

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