Naxalism Endgame

Modi’s dream of wiping out LWE by 2026 is finally coming true

Subhashis Mittra

As the year 2025 draws to a close, the ministry of home affairs (MHA) will have reasons to smile about its claims on ending decades-long Maoist insurgency. Having set a deadline of 31 March 2026, to eliminate Left Wing Extremism (LWE), the MHA has drawn up plans to launch coordinated anti-Maoist operations in the three vulnerable districts which still show traces of extremist violence.

Taking pride in pointing out that red terror has shrunk from 125 districts to just three in 11 years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently declared that ‘the day is not far’ when every nook and corner of the country will be free from Maoist insurgency—dubbed as India’s ‘greatest internal security threat’ by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2009.

Modi’s remarks reinforced Union home minister Amit Shah’s target to end Maoist insurgency by 31 March 2026, through a twin strategy of intelligence-led security action and accelerated development in tribal regions. Shah has ruled out talks with armed groups, urging them to surrender and join the mainstream under the government’s rehabilitation policy. The PM too cited a series of recent surrenders.

The large number of surrenders indicates that the violent political movement that goes back to the late Sixties is on the verge of collapse. Though the Centre has set March 31 as the deadline to eliminate the Maoist movement—presently active mainly in the forested areas of central India—it might fizzle out even before the targeted date.

Since CPI (Maoist) General Secretary Nambala Keshav Rao, alias Basavaraju, was killed in police action in Chhattisgarh in May, the political group has been in disarray. Many more have been killed in encounters with security forces, and many cadres have surrendered. The surrender of Mallojula Venugopal Rao (alias Sonu) in Gadchiroli (Maharashtra) is considered as a significant moment in the decline of LWE in the country.

The movement itself is divided, with a section advocating surrender. The Maoist brass has been thinning rapidly due to the Centre’s push and internal rifts. The Maoists, also called Naxalites, broke away from the CPM in 1967 and have since been waging a war against the Indian State. It had survived the setbacks in West Bengal, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar between the Seventies and Nineties, only to regroup as a potent force in central India in the 2000s.

Over the last decade, the coordinated efforts of security forces and development initiatives of the government have led to a signi