Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday said the Centre’s sustained, security-driven offensive against Left-Wing Extremism has delivered tangible results and asserted that the Maoist menace will be completely eradicated across the country by March 31, following a high-level review meeting in Chhattisgarh.
Shah chaired the security review on Left-Wing Extremism (LWE) in Raipur, weeks ahead of the Centre’s stated deadline to end Maoist insurgency. The meeting assessed ground operations, infrastructure expansion in remote areas and coordinated efforts to dismantle Maoist funding and logistics networks.
“Today in Raipur, I held a review meeting with the Chhattisgarh government and officials on anti-Naxal operations. The security-centric strategy, infrastructure development, targeting of the Naxal financial network and the surrender policy have yielded positive results, and Naxalism will be completely eradicated before March 31,” Shah said in a post on X.
Senior leaders and officials from the Centre and states attended the meeting, including Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai, Deputy Chief Minister Vijay Sharma, the Union Home Secretary, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau and the Special Secretary (Internal Security) in the Ministry of Home Affairs.
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Directors General of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) were present, along with top police officials from Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Telangana, reflecting a coordinated inter-state and inter-agency approach.
Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, comprising seven districts and sharing borders with Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, has long been considered the strongest bastion of Maoists. However, intensified anti-Naxal operations over the past few years, backed by improved road connectivity, telecom infrastructure and forward operating bases, have significantly weakened the extremist network.
According to police data, since January 2024 more than 500 Naxalites have been killed in encounters in Chhattisgarh, including senior leaders such as CPI (Maoist) general secretary Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraju. During the same period, around 1,900 Maoists were arrested and over 2,500 surrendered, indicating a sharp erosion of the organisation’s operational strength.
The Centre has repeatedly maintained that a combination of sustained security action, development initiatives in affected districts and an aggressive surrender and rehabilitation policy is central to its strategy to end Left-Wing Extremism. Sunday’s review reaffirmed the government’s confidence that the final phase of operations is underway.
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