Many more leaders of the banned CPI(Maoist) will come out and surrender to the police, said a senior leader of the party Kudabala Lakshmi alias Sarita after her surrender here on Wednesday.
Sarita, who was the first woman commander of the first CRC (central reorganisation committee) and a central military instructor in the Andhra-Odisha border area and carried a reward of Rs. 8 lakh on her head, had surrendered before Superintendent of Police Rahul Dev Sharma along with the party’s senior most woman member and area committee member of committees in Andhra, Odisha and Chattisgarh Bonangi Ramulamma alias Bharati, Bharatakka and Saroja, who also carried a reward of Rs. 8 lakh on her head; and Tambelu Tummu alias Vijaya alias Kumari, who worked in area committees in the AOB area and carried a reward of Rs. 1 lakh on her head.
“Many [of the party cadres] are going to their homes and they are likely to surrender. Kishore and Nageswara Rao have already gone home and our surrender will trigger many more,” Sarita said. She and Bharati said, apart from the health problem, the hard life that one had to endure as an underground cadre, almost nil recruitment into party, people not being cooperative like in the past, and the party having no issue except the bauxite mining and the behaviour of party’s top leader Chalapathi had led them to surrender. “He took charge after the death of Azad [in a recent encounter] and is rude and it is difficult to deal with him. We discussed it with him but there was no change. We brought the cadres unhappiness to the notice of the central committee leaders. Chalapathi is facing a lot of problems from the cadre,” Sarita said. She denied that the police took her and others into custody long time ago. They left the party on May 19 and after spending some time with their family and in the forest, they decided to surrender, she said.
All the three were involved in several major incidents in the Andhra-Odisha border area, according to the police.
Vijaya, along with her husband Kamesh, came out of the party some time ago without informing it and stayed in an Odisha village. After her husband died due to ill health, she shifted to her native village Tartal in G. Madugula mandal. A local of the village, Lalitha had surrendered recently after coming to know that she was in the police records. Her brother Nageswara Rao and brother-in-law Appa Rao and relatives are still in the party.
Additional SP (operations) Babujee Attada was present.
Mr. Rahul Dev Sharma said there was no motivation for the party cadres. “While the local Girijans wanted to see development and those in the party were not able to understand why any sort of achievement was not there on the part of the party.”
The police department is giving a lot of publicity to the rewards on the heads of Maoists and counselling their family members to make their wards surrender, he said.
The SP said all possible help would be extended to the surrendered Maoists. Each one receives Rs. 10,000 immediately on surrender and the reward on his or her head would also be given to him or her. A house site and support in rehabilitation would be extended to them.
