In line with the statement on January 07, by Union Home Minister Amit Shah that the aim of the Union government is to make the country free from Maoism before the 2024 parliamentary elections while addressing a rally at Indira stadium in Chhattisgarh’s Korba city as per multiple media sources, security forces have launched operations in the main Naxal affected states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
Operations for the establishment of new COPs and to neutralize the Maoists in large groups are being carried out in the two states in particular while Odisha and Bihar are expected to be tackled in the next phase.
Chhattisgarh
A report in the Times of India on January 12 indicated there was a fierce encounter on January 11 on the inter-state border between Chhattisgarh and Telangana. The report quotes Bastar range inspector general of police P Sundarraj to state that, “A CRPF’s CoBRA battalion was being shifted to a forward operating base via a chopper in forests located on borders of Sukma and Bijapur.
Maoists suddenly opened fire when the troops were de-boarding the helicopter leading to an encounter between the two. There was no casualty reported from CoBRA battalion and we were trying to find out if any Maoist suffered injuries or death. The search operation is underway in the region.”
There were reports circulating of Maoist commander Madvi Hidma having been killed or injured in the operation. If that be so this could be marked as a success.
Jharkhand
Operations have also been launched in Jharkhand with an encounter and IED incident reported on January 13 and 14.
In Jharkhand, the maxium number of districts at 16 are being provided SRE support by the Central Government. These include Bokaro, Chatra, Dhanbad, Dumka, East Singhbhum, Garhwa, Giridih, Gumla, Hazaribagh, Khunti, Latehar, Lohardaga, Palamu, Ranchi, Saraikela-Kharaswan, West Singhbhum.
There is however considerable drop in the number of violent incidents from 200 in 2018 to 118 up to 30 November 2022 as per data provided by the Ministry of Home Affairs to the parliament during the winter session 2022.
Examining Possibilty of Naxal Free India in 2024
However despite the government intent the challenge of overcoming Naxal presence/influence from 70 districts in the next 15 months prior to elections in 2024 remains considerable.
The level of troops required for the purpose and the ability of these to overcome the hard core People Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) cadres and their supporters will remain a major challenge given that these are flexible and operate in small groups evading the security dragnet and exploiting the inter state boundaries.
To ensure that the Home Minister’s statement is not an electoral hype, major operations will have to be launched simultaneously across at least 25 districts in a saturation mode.
For instance in Chhattisgarh which is the state with maximum incidents of violence in 2022 which have in fact increased from 263 in 2019 to 279 in 2022 till 30 November 14 districts are in receipt of SRE funds and Bastar, Bijapur, Dantewada, Kanker, Kondagaon, Narayanpur and Sukma could be seen as the most severely impacted.
Is the present level of security forces deployed for counter Naxal operations capable of elimination of Maoism from Chhattisgarh let alone across India remains to be seen?