Amaravati, May 21 Nambala Keshav Rao, India’s topmost Maoist leader, gunned down by security forces in Chhattisgarh on Wednesday, was considered a ruthless revolutionary and a master military strategist who led some of the most brutal attacks in the history of the Maoist movement in the country.
Popularly known as Basavaraju, he was the obvious choice to lead CPI (Maoist) when Muppala Lakshman Rao or Ganapathy stepped down as the general secretary in 2018.
Regarded as an expert in IEDs, Basavaraju hailed from the Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh. He had led many brutal attacks, including the 2010 attack at Chintalnar in Chhattisgarh, killing 76 CRPF personnel.
With a B.Tech degree from the National Institute of Technology, Warangal (earlier known as Regional Engineering College), he was known to be one of the highly educated Maoists.
Basavarju, who was around 70, spent 43 years in the Maoist movement to which he was attracted in the 1980s while studying M.Tech.
He was the Commander in Chief of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the Maoists and carried a reward of Rs 2.02 crore on his head.
He also headed the forest division of the Dandakaranya in the past and was a member of the CPI (Maoist) Politburo, the ideological think tank of the banned outfit.
The Maoist leader was believed to be responsible for all major attacks on security forces over the last 15 years.
He was also considered to be the brain behind the Claymore mine attack on Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu at Alipiri in Tirupati in 2003. Naidu, then Chief Minister of united Andhra Pradesh, was injured in the attack.
The guerrilla leader, who was also a member of the Standing Committee and Central Committee of CPI (Maoist), was considered a hardliner in following party ideology when compared to his predecessor, Ganapathy.
Ganapathy, who was the first general secretary after the CPI-ML People’s War and Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) merged in 2004 to form the CPI (Maoist), is believed to have fled India.
Basavaraju was known by many aliases, including Vinay, Ganganna, Prakash, BR, Umesh and Keshav.
He was born in Jiyannapeta of Kotabommili mandal in Srikakulam district in 1955. His father, Vasudev Rao, was a teacher, and he had a brother and three sisters.
After primary education in the village, he went to high school in his grandfather’s village, Talagam and completed intermediate from Junio College at Tekkali. During his college days, he was a kabbadi player.
While studying B.Tech from the Regional Engineering College (REC) Warangal, he was attracted by the Radical Students’ Union. In 1984, while doing his M. Tech, he was impressed by CPI (ML) People’s War’s ideology. He discontinued M. Tech to join the movement. After joining the Naxalbari movement, he never visited his village.
Basavaraju was considered a key strategist in carrying out military attacks. He headed the Central Military Commission for a decade.
He was also believed to have hatched the plot to attack Salwa Judum founder Mahendra Karma in 2013. Mahendra Karma and 27 others were killed in this attack.
He was also the brain behind the killing of Telugu Desam Party’s Araku MLA Kidari Sarveswara Rao and former MLA Siveri Soma on September 23, 2018.
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