Kartik Lokhande's blog

* With the advancing age of General Secretary of the banned ultra-Left outfit Ganapathy, discussions on line of succession are intense and allegations of ‘Telugu domination’ are growing By Kartik Lokhande UNDATED, Jan 20: Power is poison. It vitiates organisation, it is said. The banned ultra-Left outfit Communist Party of India (Maoist) is experiencing this nowadays. With the advancing age of its supreme commander Muppalla Laxmana Rao alias Ganapathy, a struggle for his position has intensified within the Maoist organisation. The power struggle that began some time ago has intensified and serious rifts are emerging in the top leadership of the Maoist organisation. CPI (Maoist) came into being in September 2004 after merger of two biggest ultra-Left groups namely People’s War (PW) active in southern and Central India, and Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) active in northern parts of the country. Though the merger had taken place on ‘theoretical’ lines, some differences remained...

Casteist, religious differences emerge in Maoist rank and file * In the review of ‘situation’ and chalking out of ‘immediate tasks’ document, Central Committee of CPI (Maoist) admits to negative impact of casteist and religious cultures By Kartik Lokhande After admitting that it is facing a ‘critical situation’, Communist Party of India (Maoist) has now come up with one more admission – caste and religious divides within its rank and file. As part of ‘rectification campaign’, it has laid out plans for party leadership to stay with lower level cadres in the field and self-criticism in every meeting. Some time ago, the Maoists had admitted to their ‘movement’ weakening in Maharashtra and facing ‘critical situation’ countrywide, following arrests and encounters of its top leaders as well as surrender of field-level cadres in different parts of the country. Many of its cadres had even left the party organisation as they were frustrated with the living co...