Lumpenisation was crippling the Maoist movement in Bihar and Jharkhand while top leaders were unable to do anything about it, said the Communist Party of India-Maoist Central Committee (CC) member Sathwaji alias Sudhakar on Wednesday.
Presented before the media by Telangana police following his surrender along with his wife V. Aruna, Sathwaji said those lumpen elements and his party moving away from people compelled him to quit. “There is patriarchal domination in the party. Under tremendous pressure due to multiple reasons, some women activists of the party committed suicide,” he said.
Among the woman members who ended their lives was the present CPI-Maoist party chief (CC Secretary) Nambala Keshava Rao’s wife Ramakka alias Sharada, he claimed. These woman party workers killed themselves due to undue demands from party leaders and male colleagues, he maintained.
Replying to a question, he said there was no physical harassment of the women cadre but they were under psychological pressure and the party top guns failed to find solutions to their problems, he said.
Stating that not a single resolution passed by the party's Central Committee (CC) since 2013 could be implemented, Sathwaji said collection of money for personal and family reasons became the priority of party leaders in Bihar and Jharkhand. “There is no record or account details of money collected and spent by the party since past seven to eight years,” he charged.
Alleging that party squads began indulging in attacks on people like criminal gangs in those two States, he said he was isolated when he raised the issue in CC. “I even wrote to the committee that financial discipline and moral values were eroding in the party,” Sathwaji said.
Asked about Jharkhand police arresting his brother Narayana while the latter was carrying ₹25 lakh in December 2017, Sathwaji said it was the money collected by the party from different sources. “Like that, there were several instances of us collecting money but that was for party operations,” he said.
He asked the media to go to his Sangapur village in Nirmal district and verify if any of that money was used for his family members. Sathwaji and his wife Aruna said that they indicated to their party's Eastern Regional Board about their plans to quit and sent a detailed letter to it before deciding to surrender.
Telangana DGP M. Mahender Reddy said that Sathwaji was arrested in 1986 by Hyderabad police in the 'Ramnagar conspiracy case' while he was working in CPI-ML People's War Group of Naxalites' Central Technical Team. While being in prison from 1986 to 1989, he developed rapport with revolutionary writer Varavara Rao who too was lodged there in the same case.
“We need to ascertain if he was in touch with Varavara Rao of late,” the DGP said.
