The last stand of the Maoists: Surrenders are up, cadres are down, and the deadline is just 1 day away

For decades, the forests of central India told a story the government could not afford to ignore. Armed cadres of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) controlled vast swathes of territory, and the state's reach in these regions was, at best, limited. Today, that grip has loosened considerably. The numbers, officials say, speak for themselves.

Over 10,000 Maoists have laid down arms in the last decade . In 2025 , a record 1,562 cadres surrendered. By early 2026, another 630 had followed. The Red Corridor, which once stretched from Pashupati to Tirupati, now covers barely a dozen districts.

The turning point came in a cascade of blows to the Maoist command structure. In May 2025, security forces killed Nambala Keshava Rao , known as Basavaraju , the General Secretary of CPI (Maoist), alongside 27 cadres in Abujhmarh. He was held responsible for the 2010 Dantewada ambush in which 76 paramilitary soldiers were killed. That strike followed Operation Black Forest , a 21-day sweep in the Karreguttalu Hills that killed 31 Maoists including top commanders. The broader Operation Kagar , launched in January 2024, accounted for over 300 Maoist deaths , 1,033 arrests and 925 surrenders . The Kanker clash saw 29 killed, Gadchiroli saw divisional commander Vishal Atram neutralised, and Karnataka's Vikram Gowda , linked to 80 violent cases, was eliminated in November 2024. Central Committee leader Chalapati was killed near the Odisha-Chhattisgarh border in January 2025, and March 2025 operations in Sukma and Bijapur killed 46 more. In 2025 alone, 256 Naxals were killed, 884 arrested , and 875 IEDs recovered.

The surrenders have been equally consequential. In October 2025, strategist Mallojula Venugopal Rao , alias Sonu, surrendered with 60 cadres in Gadchiroli. Then, in February 2026, Thippiri Tirupati , known as Devji , the believed successor to Basavaraju, surrendered before Telangana Police alongside Politburo member Malla Raji Reddy , alias Sangram, and 16 cadres, the two carrying a combined bounty of Rs 3.5 crore . By then, 10 Central Committee members had been killed or surrendered in 2025 alone.

On Sunday, a Naxalite was killed in an encounter with security forces in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district , two days before the Centre’s March 31 deadline to eradicate Maoism, police said. The gunfight occurred near Polampalli police station during an anti-Naxal operation.

Behind the military success lies a multi-pronged blueprint. The Border Roads Organisation has built over 15,000 kilometres of roads in affected regions. Fortified police stations jumped from 66 to 586, and Naxal-affected police stations collapsed from 330 across 76 districts to 52 across 22. Under PM-Awas Yojana, houses sanctioned rose from 92,847 to 2.5 lakh . Over 250 Eklavya schools and 9,000 mobile towers now serve communities the Maoists once held captive.

Yet the victory declaration sits uneasily. Human rights groups, including the People's Union for Civil Liberties, have flagged fake encounters and extrajudicial killings, with at least 11 incidents in 18 months. Many killed were Adivasis, civilians and combatants alike. Civilian deaths rose 27% in 2024 even as the government claimed progress.

Armed cadre strength has fallen from 2,000 to just 220 . Karnataka and Kerala are Naxal-free. Chhattisgarh is headless. But the fault lines, land, inequality, tribal rights, that fed this insurgency since 1967 have not disappeared. The guns are going quiet. Whether the grievances follow is the question the next decade must answer.