Telangana Rashtra Samiti has started coming under pressure to commit itself to lifting the ban on the Naxalite organisations, including the CPI-Maoist.
Revolutionary poet and president of Revolutionary Writers’ Association Vara Vara Rao on Monday met TRS president K Chandrashekhar Rao and urged him to lift nearly 23-year-old ban on the Maoist organisation as well as six front organisations.After meeting, Vara Vara Rao told the media that he put forth the demand that there should not be any undemocratic restrictions in the Telangana State. “I demanded that these promises should be included in the manifesto of TRS and he accepted it.”
TRS sources said that KCR agreed to have a discussion on these issues in party’s manifesto committee.Andhra Pradesh was the first State in the country to impose ban on the Naxalites when they were known as CPIMl People’s War Group. PWG and several front organisations — including their students, miners and agriculture labour wings — were declared unlawful in 1991 by the Congress Government headed by N Janardhan Reddy after a spate of attacks by the Maoists on political leaders and public property.
Since then the ban was extended several times as successive Governments rejected the demand for easing the restrictions as subsequent years saw an upsurge in Maoist violence — including a near fatal attack on then Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu in October 2003.
YS Rajashekhar Reddy Government held peace talks with the outlawed CPI-Maoists but it broke down on the issue of right of Maoists to carry around the arms.It was followed by a massive crackdown and killing of several top Maoist leaders leading to near extinction of Maoist movement in Andhra Pradesh. The level of Maoist violence has fallen down to the lowest level over the last few years.However, many security experts and former police officials have warned that any laxity on the part of the Government and the police can lead to resurgence of Maoist violence in Andhra Pradesh.