Sabyasachi Panda alias Sunil (46) was born into a political family at Mayurjhalia village in Ranpur in Nayagarh district. His grandfather Madan Sundar Panda, a freedom fighter, served a 12-year jail term for his leading role in the Ranpur Praja rebellion and involvement in the murder of a top British official.
Sabyasachi’s father Ramesh Chandra Panda had started his political career when he was a student of the Ravenshaw College, Cuttack. He joined the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), a front of the undivided Communist Party of India (CPI) and later became a fulltime CPI activist. In 1964 after the split in the CPI, Ramesh joined the CPI(M). He was elected the chairman of Ranpur block in 1967 and then the same year was elected to the State Assembly from the Ranpur constituency. He was elected thrice from the same constituency.
Sabyasachi was deeply influenced by Marxist ideology even when he was in school and joined the SFI while he was a student at the SCS College, Puri. He became an active CPI(M) member in 1985. From 1985 to 1990, he stayed in the CPI(M) State headquarters in Bhubaneswar as a whole timer.
Following differences of opinion over party programmes, the CPI(M) State unit was split in 1990-91 with two sections of dissidents walking out to form two different outfits. One group formed the Odisha Communist Party (OCP) and the other the Indian People’s Front (IPF) with Dandapani Mohanty as the President and Sabyasachi as the general secretary. Nagbhushan Patnaik was the national IPF President. Since the IPF was aligned with the CPI(Ml) liberation, both were also inducted into the party’s State committee. Sabyasachi was intimately associated with Dandapani Mohanty until the time he went underground.
Sabyasachi left the CPI(Ml) in 1996. In 1995, he started organising the tribals in the Bansadhara area in Rayagada-Gajapati districts to build a movement for tribals’ dignity and their rights over land in the 5th Schedule Areas. Over-ground outfits like the Chasi Mulia Samiti (CMS) and Kui labanga Sangh (KlS) were formed to reclaim land from Sahukars, who are moneylenders and businessmen.
The movement gathered steam and Sabyasachi chose to move out of the coastal belt to build his base in the Bansadhara area. The State Government ordered a crackdown on the movement and arrested hundreds of people in Rayagada and Gajapati districts. In Mandrabaju in Gajapati district, eight tribals were killed in police firing. Sabyasachi was arrested, kept in the Padampur police station (Rayagada).
In 2000, after getting bail, Sabyasachi went underground. He first joined the CPI-Ml-Party Unity, which merged with the People’s War Group (PWG) in 2002. In 2004, after the merger of PWG and MCC to form CPI(Maoist), he joined the CPI(Maoist). For two years, he was the Secretary of the Bansdhara or the Vashdhara Division of the party. In 2006, he was appointed as the Secretary of its Odisha State Organising Committee.
Sabyasachi has mostly been an Organiser, Spokesperson and planner for his party. He has repeatedly said he does not believe in violence for the sake of violence. Although he is not known for his warfare skills, he has been named as one of the main accused persons in a number of major cases like jailbreak, armoury loot and abduction of a police officer and jailor in R Udayagiri (Gajapati district) in 2006, Nayagarh armoury loot in 2008 that left 15 policemen dead and murder of VHP leader Swami laxmanananda.
Sabyasachi developed serious differences with the powerful Andhra Odisha Border Special Zonal Committee of the CPI(Maoist) over a number of issues in 2008, especially after the party took a decision to kill Swami laxmanananda without taking him into confidence.
In 2009-10, Sabyasachi was stripped of some of his powers by the Central Committee of the party following reports that he was not doing enough on the military front. However, it was party leader Kishenji who had come to his rescue. His position was restored in the party. After Kishenji’s death in an encounter in West Bengal, Sabyasachi reportedly entered into a fresh round of spat with his comrades from Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Most of his associates also surrendered.
Sabyasachi commanded a truncated band of followers in four districts, Kandhamal, Gajapati, Rayagada and Ganjam. He was on top of the Most Wanted list of the Odisha police carrying a cash reward of Rs5 lakh on his head.
Sabyasachi married a left activist Subhashree Das in 1998 and they have a 12-year-daughter, Swaroopa.
Subhashree was arrested in January 2010 from her home on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar and charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for allegedly being an over-ground worker of her husband’s party.
Subhashree was acquitted by the Odisha High Court in September 2011 but was rearrested under fresh charges of being a part of a Maoist squad that launched an armed attack on the police in Kutinguda in Rayagada district in 2003. The case was tried in the Fast Track Court at Gunupur which acquitted her of all charges on the April, 10, 2012. Her name had also figured in the list of to-be-released prisoners in exchange for an Italian national Paolo Bosusco, who had been abducted by Sabyasachi’s group on March 14, 2012.
Sabyasachi’s elder brother Siddharth is an active member of the State’s present ruling party Biju Janata Dal (BJD). Many suspect the Naveen Patnaik Government has adopted a soft attitude towards Sabyasachi because of his family’s links with the BJD. His father Ramesh Panda had joined the BJD and become president of its Nayagarh district unit a few years before his death. Sabyasachi’s mother lives with her elder son Siddharth in Bhubaneswar. His wife Subhashree (Mili) now stays in his native village Mayurjhalia with daughter and heads a platform called Jana Manch. In the last elections, she had contested from the Ranpur Assembly seat on an Aama Odisha Party ticket but lost.