By Mohammed Shafeeq, IANS
Hyderabad : With the bid on the life of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Janardhan Reddy and his minister wife N. Rajyalakshmi early Friday, the Maoists have once again tried to give a message that they may be down but not certainly out in their traditional stronghold.
Making their presence felt, the Maoists triggered a landmine blast targeting the former chief minister’s convoy in Nellore district, about 550 km from here.
While Janardhan Reddy, a Member of Parliament from Visakhapatnam and his wife, who is a minister in the state cabinet, escaped unhurt, three people travelling in another car in their convoy were killed.
By launching the assassination attempt on the man who first imposed a ban on their outfit in 1992, the Maoists have tried to give a chilling message to the Congress government.
The surprise attack, one of the biggest strikes in Maoist history in the state, jolted the government, which described it as a “desperate attempt by Maoists to regain lost ground”.
Janardhan Reddy, who served as chief minister from 1990 to 1992, had imposed the ban on Communist Party of India Marxist Leninist People’s War Group (PWG), which merged with Maoist Communist Centre in 2004 to form Communist Party of India (Maoist).
Using their traditional modus operandi of triggering a landmine with a flash, the central action committee of CPI (Maoist) carried out the surprise attack in Nellore, which has been more or less free from Maoist violence for some time now.
This is the first major attack on a high-profile politician in Andhra Pradesh two years. In the last major strike on Aug 15, 2005, Maoists had gunned down Congress party’s legislator C. Narsi Reddy, and eight other persons, including one of his sons, in Mahabubnagar district.
Every time the administration felt Maoists were losing ground, the rebels tried to bounce back with a dramatic attack. The bid on the life of then chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in a landmine blast near Tirupati in 2003 has been the biggest Maoist attack on politicians so far.
Ever since the first-ever direct peace talks between the Maoist leadership and the state government broke down in early 2005, the Maoists had a series of setbacks. In clashes with security forces, they lost more than 250 cadres including several top leaders in Nallamalla forests, their stronghold spread over five districts.
The Andhra Pradesh police, which is seen as a role model for more than a dozen other states facing Maoist problems, achieved their biggest success in July last year when they killed the topmost leader of CPI (Maoist) in the state.
Madhav was among eight Maoists gunned down in the Nallamalla forests in Prakasham district. In June this year, another top leader and CPI-Maoist central committee member Sande Rajamouli alias Prasad was killed in a gun battle with police in Anantapur district.
The recent lull in Maoist activities had given rise to fears of surprise attacks in police circles. “We have to be more vigilant because they (Maoist) might launch surprise attacks,” Director General of Police M.A. Basit had said three months ago. There were also reports of Maoists planning attacks in north coastal Andhra bordering Orissa and Chhattisgarh and regrouping in Nallamalla.
In other major attacks in the past, the Maoists had killed state Panchayat Raj minister A. Madhava Reddy in 2000 for adopting a tough anti-Maoist policy during his tenure as the home minister in an earlier cabinet.
Member of Parliament Magunta Subbirami Reddy, two legislators, former speaker of state assembly Sripad Rao, and dozens of other leaders were among more than 300 political activists killed by Maoists during last two decades.
Andhra Pradesh is considered the traditional stronghold of Maoists. It was in this southern state that CPI-ML People’s War Group was founded in 1982. Since then the rebels have been fighting for the creation of a communist state comprising tribal areas in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh.
Maoists, who claim to be fighting for poor and landless peasants, began their armed uprising in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh in 1969. They have been targeting landlords and the police, who are accused of protecting the rich and the ruling class.
More than 6,000 people have been killed in the Maoist violence. More than half of those killed were Maoist guerrillas.
Despite losing several top leaders and armed cadre, the CPI (Maoist) are still believed to have more than 350 armed rebels in the state.