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CPI (Maoist) declares surrendered Naxals as traitors, asks cadres to punish them
The banned CPI (Maoist) party’s central committee spokesperson Abhay released a four-page Telugu statement, dated October 16, to the media on Sunday
Hyderabad: The banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) has declared its surrendered top leaders including Mallojula Venugopal Rao alias Sonu and Takkallapalli Vasudeva Rao alias Rupesh as “traitors to the revolution” and called upon the “revolutionary cadre” to punish these “betrayers” according “revolutionary justice”.
In a four-page Telugu statement dated October 16 that was released to media on Sunday, CPI (Maoist) party’s central committee spokesperson Abhay said the surrender of Sonu, along with Dandakaranya special zonal committee member Deepa and 60 others before Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on October 14 at Gadchiroli was a counter-revolutionary act, a betrayal of the Maoist party and an action that weakens the revolution.
The statement, released before the surrender of Rupesh alias Satish along with over 200 Maoist party cadres before the Chhattisgarh police at Jagdalpur on Friday, also referred to the development, described them as splitters and counter-revolutionaries.
Abhay alleged that Rupesh had maintained contact with senior police and Chhattisgarh’s home minister for long time.
“Even after the Central Committee instructed that weapons belonging to the revolutionary people must be returned to the party, before surrender, Sonu and Satish defied the order and handed over the weapons to the enemy.
“To give the enemy the very weapons won through the sacrifices of countless comrades means enabling them to kill revolutionaries. This is an unpardonable counter-revolutionary act,” he said and announced that the central committee was expelling Sonu, Satish and others from the party.
Declaring the surrendered Maoist leaders as traitors to the revolution, the CC spokesperson called upon the revolutionary masses to punish these betrayers according to revolutionary justice.
The central committee admitted its own organisational failure in not assessing these dangers in time and resolved to draw lessons from the episode.
Abhay said since the end of 2011, the Dandakaranya revolutionary movement, which has faced grave challenges, and the all-India revolutionary movement had suffered temporary setbacks by 2018.
“From that time, Sonu’s political weaknesses began to emerge. In the central committee meeting held in December 2020, Sonu presented a document containing baseless and subjective criticisms about the shortcomings in Dandakaranya’s revolutionary practice. The CC rejected this document,” he said.
He pointed out that since then, in every central committee and polit bureau meeting, Sonu’s erroneous political views were criticised, and efforts were made to correct them. “After the martyrdom of our Party’s General Secretary Comrade Basavaraj in the Kagar encounter of May 2025, Sonu’s long-standing ideological, political, and moral weaknesses intensified and led him to kneel before the enemy,” Abhay said.
He alleged that Sonu, grown soft and indulgent, was not ready for any sacrifices. “His craving for comfort and his fear of loss led to cowardice. Instead of acknowledging this truth, he hid behind false ideological justifications. To conceal his fear and weakness, he accused the party’s political and military line of being wrong and claimed that because of this wrong line, the Indian revolutionary movement has suffered defeat,” the spokespersons said.
He said Sonu continued to proclaim that there was no alternative but to hand over weapons to the enemy and temporarily suspend armed struggle. This is an act of betrayal, he said.
“If Sonu truly believed in his writings, he should have debated his views within the Central Committee and Polit Bureau and worked to correct the movement’s mistakes. But instead, he violated democratic centralism, ignored organisational discipline, and surrendered to the enemy,” Abhay said.
While admitting that the surrender of Sonu and his 61 followers is a loss, the spokesperson emphasised that it is only temporary. Revolutions may suffer defeats, but they rise again, he said, adding that surrenders can never inspire the people; they only create despair,” the statement said.
The central committee appealed to party and PLGA (People’s Liberation Guerilla Army) members who were misled by Sonu’s opportunist arguments to realise their mistake and return to the revolutionary fold.
