The creation of Telangana might bring electoral gains for the Congress, but the move is also likely to witness the resurgence of the banned CPI(Maoist) in the region. It had taken decades of blood bath and encounters to make the Maoists flee the state.
The security establishment is now apprehensive that the Telangana movement, which had the “tacit support” of the Maoists would “help them regroup yet again”. Causing major worry to the security brass is the fact that almost the entire top brass in the Maoist hierarchy and the most wanted Naxalites hail from Andhra Pradesh. CPI(Maoist) general secretary Muppalla Lakshmana Rao, alias Ganapathy, and its top military commander Kattakam Sudershan belong to the Telangana region. While Ganapathy has his roots in Karimnagar, Sudarshan belongs to Adilabad and was the head of north Telengana special zone committee before he was elevated to the central committee of the banned outfit. Leading the central military commission of the militants, Sudershan is also the prime suspect in the most deadly attack on Congress leaders which took place in Chhattisgarh in April 2013.
As the state machinery gets busy with division of resources to carve out Telangana, the police brass is particularly worried about the division of the Andhra Greyhounds and the state police, who has been in the forefront of anti-Naxal operations in the Red Corridor.
Top security officials said that the anti-Naxal operations may also take a backseat and Naxalites may use the opportunity to their advantage to re-group and become active once again.
“In the short term at least, the divided state faces an impending Maoist threat in the coming months,” an intelligence official remarked.
Going by the past records of newly-carved out states like Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, Naxals have gained significant grounds in these states taking advantage of the development and policing deficit, the official added.