He is possibly the shrewdest and most elusive Left wing extremist since Tarimela Nagi Reddy who had managed to stay, undergo treatment and die incognito in Hyderabad's state run Osmania General Hospital during the Emergency of the 1970s. For more than three decades now, Muppala Lakshman Rao, 63, alias, Ganapathy, has eluded arrest since he jumped bail in 1979 after being held for violence and arson in Jagtial in his native Karimnagar district of Andhra Pradesh.
The 'most wanted' Rao carries the highest reward of Rs.24 lakh, on the head of any Maoist in the country, for specific information that culminates in his arrest.
Like several Maoist diehards from the state Rao came under the influence of the ideologue and fiery Maoist leader Kondapalli Seetharamaiah and his Dalit acolyte K.G. Satyamurthy while doing a Bachelor of Education course at the Government College of Education in 1974-75.
The persuasive Seetharamaiah and Satyamurthy fired Rao's imagination by harping on how inequities and imbalanced rural development can be overcome only ushering in a radical change through violence and spoke of the exploits of their two Bengali comrades Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal "who have already brought it to the door of the state in Srikakulam in 1970."
For Rao, who hails from an upper caste Velama farmer's family in Beerpur and went to a Telugu medium school in nearby Jagtial, it was easy to appreciate what the radical leaders offered in speech and slogans. He had already spent three academic years, 1971-74, as a teacher at the Zilla Parishad High School at Elgandal, also in Karimnagar district, after graduating with a B.Sc. degree from the S.R.R. College in Karimnagar in 1970.
So, Rao like many other youths including those at the Regional Engineering College, Warangal, and at the Osmania University in Hyderabad, became part of the radical students union inspired by Seetharamaiah and Satyamurthy in 1975.
Rao took the lead in organising the rural youth in protests but with the imposition of Emergency that year and the government banning Left wing organisations Rao was arrested and remained in jail for about 13 months until early 1977 when he secured bail.
An even more determined Rao decided to turn a full time Maoist and was arrested for indulging in violence and arson in 1977.
When he got bail in 1979, he went underground and steered a group called the Peddapalli Dalam in his home district and rise swiftly in the Maoist ranks. He served as a district committee member from 1980 to 1984, a divisional commander in 1985 and was elevated as Secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Provincial Committee in 1987 and then to the all important Central Organising Committee of the People's War Group in 1990.
Less than two years later, in 1992, Rao differed with his guru, now a somewhat mellowed Seetharamaiah, on the need to expand the PWG and turn more militant, expelled him and took charge as the all powerful Secretary. He took it to more states, with the help of intelligent cadres from Andhra Pradesh to provide leadership in different states, including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand, and, then, bring other left wing extremist groups like the MCCI to rally behind him with the grand merger to emerge as the CPI (Maoists) on September 21, 2004. With that Rao emerged as the unchallenged leader of a formidable force while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh admitted candidly that the Maoists were the single biggest threat to internal security.
When, in 2004, the ruling Congress in Andhra Pradesh under Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy invited the outlawed Maoists to the negotiating table the tactful Rao sent a delegation led by a deputy operating in Andhra Pradesh rather than come himself and try to strike a deal, like other outlawed and terrorist groups have done, across the country by taking advantage of the fact that the Congress is in office both in Hyderabad and Delhi.
Rao operates from the backwoods of Bastar in Chattisgarh with a group of about 25 armed militants ringing him and providing security cover. Seldom does he leave the area apprehensive of being picked up. Unlike other veteran Maoist militants, like Prashanta Bose, Rao has no major health worries though his eye sight has worsened and he suffers from gastritis and arthritis. The anti-Maoist intelligence has reports of him having been sighted last in Rourkela and Behrampur in 2002 and 2003.
Unmindful of reverses, Rao is a staunch believer in the Mao dictum of power flows through the barrel of gun and sticks the strategy that was firmed up at the post election review of the CPI (Maoist) Politburo meeting of June 2009.
The strategy, as enunciated in a party document, states: "It is quite difficult for the Centre to send the forces required by each state to control our movement. Keeping this in mind, we have to further aggravate the situation and create more difficulties to the enemy forces by expanding our guerilla war to new areas on the one hand and intensifying the mass resistance in the existing areas so as to disperse the enemy forces over a sufficiently wider area on the other; hence the foremost task in every state is to intensify the war in the respective states while in areas of intense enemy repression there is need to expand the area of struggle by proper planning by the concerned committees; tactical counter - offensives should be stepped up and also taken up in new areas so as to divert a section of the enemy forces from attacking our guerrilla bases and organs of political power."
Muppala Lakshman Rao
Like several Maoist diehards from the state Rao came under the influence of the ideologue and fiery Maoist leader Kondapalli Seetharamaiah and his Dalit acolyte K.G. Satyamurthy while doing a Bachelor of Education course at the Government College of Education in 1974-75.
The persuasive Seetharamaiah and Satyamurthy fired Rao's imagination by harping on how inequities and imbalanced rural development can be overcome only ushering in a radical change through violence and spoke of the exploits of their two Bengali comrades Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal "who have already brought it to the door of the state in Srikakulam in 1970."
For Rao, who hails from an upper caste Velama farmer's family in Beerpur and went to a Telugu medium school in nearby Jagtial, it was easy to appreciate what the radical leaders offered in speech and slogans. He had already spent three academic years, 1971-74, as a teacher at the Zilla Parishad High School at Elgandal, also in Karimnagar district, after graduating with a B.Sc. degree from the S.R.R. College in Karimnagar in 1970.
So, Rao like many other youths including those at the Regional Engineering College, Warangal, and at the Osmania University in Hyderabad, became part of the radical students union inspired by Seetharamaiah and Satyamurthy in 1975.
Rao took the lead in organising the rural youth in protests but with the imposition of Emergency that year and the government banning Left wing organisations Rao was arrested and remained in jail for about 13 months until early 1977 when he secured bail.
An even more determined Rao decided to turn a full time Maoist and was arrested for indulging in violence and arson in 1977.
When he got bail in 1979, he went underground and steered a group called the Peddapalli Dalam in his home district and rise swiftly in the Maoist ranks. He served as a district committee member from 1980 to 1984, a divisional commander in 1985 and was elevated as Secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Provincial Committee in 1987 and then to the all important Central Organising Committee of the People's War Group in 1990.
Less than two years later, in 1992, Rao differed with his guru, now a somewhat mellowed Seetharamaiah, on the need to expand the PWG and turn more militant, expelled him and took charge as the all powerful Secretary. He took it to more states, with the help of intelligent cadres from Andhra Pradesh to provide leadership in different states, including Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand, and, then, bring other left wing extremist groups like the MCCI to rally behind him with the grand merger to emerge as the CPI (Maoists) on September 21, 2004. With that Rao emerged as the unchallenged leader of a formidable force while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh admitted candidly that the Maoists were the single biggest threat to internal security.
When, in 2004, the ruling Congress in Andhra Pradesh under Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy invited the outlawed Maoists to the negotiating table the tactful Rao sent a delegation led by a deputy operating in Andhra Pradesh rather than come himself and try to strike a deal, like other outlawed and terrorist groups have done, across the country by taking advantage of the fact that the Congress is in office both in Hyderabad and Delhi.
Rao operates from the backwoods of Bastar in Chattisgarh with a group of about 25 armed militants ringing him and providing security cover. Seldom does he leave the area apprehensive of being picked up. Unlike other veteran Maoist militants, like Prashanta Bose, Rao has no major health worries though his eye sight has worsened and he suffers from gastritis and arthritis. The anti-Maoist intelligence has reports of him having been sighted last in Rourkela and Behrampur in 2002 and 2003.
Unmindful of reverses, Rao is a staunch believer in the Mao dictum of power flows through the barrel of gun and sticks the strategy that was firmed up at the post election review of the CPI (Maoist) Politburo meeting of June 2009.
The strategy, as enunciated in a party document, states: "It is quite difficult for the Centre to send the forces required by each state to control our movement. Keeping this in mind, we have to further aggravate the situation and create more difficulties to the enemy forces by expanding our guerilla war to new areas on the one hand and intensifying the mass resistance in the existing areas so as to disperse the enemy forces over a sufficiently wider area on the other; hence the foremost task in every state is to intensify the war in the respective states while in areas of intense enemy repression there is need to expand the area of struggle by proper planning by the concerned committees; tactical counter - offensives should be stepped up and also taken up in new areas so as to divert a section of the enemy forces from attacking our guerrilla bases and organs of political power."
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