The Communist Party of India (Maoist) has selected a successor to Cherukuri Rajkumar, alias Azad, who served as the spokesperson of the Central Committee until he was killed by the Andhra Pradesh police in Adilabad on July 2.
“As per my information, comrade Azad's role shall now be taken over by comrade Abhay,” Dandakaranya special zonal committee spokesperson Gudsa Usendi told The Hindu on telephone. Usendi clarified that while he had received information from “one line of communication from Bastar,” he was still awaiting confirmation of Abhay's appointment from the rest of the party.
Usendi declined to divulge any further information. “It is our policy to keep identities secret as far as possible,” he said. “Even in the case of comrade Azad, very few of our party workers knew that Azad was actually a man named Cherukuri Rajkumar. While the outside world knew him as Azad, in the party he went by the names of Gangadhar, Madhu, Uday or Dinesh, depending on where he was travelling.”
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In a press statement released on July 11, Dantewada Senior Superintendent of Police S.R.P. Kalluri claimed to have information that Azad's successor was one Lingaram Kodopi, an Adivasi boy now enrolled in a journalism programme in Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Usendi, however, dismissed such claims as “laughable.”
“Mr. Kalluri is free to imagine Azad's successor,” Usendi said.
‘Gudsa Usendi' is a pseudonym adopted by Maoist spokespersons while speaking to the press. “You can say it is my title rather than my name,” Gudsa said. The title is in memory of a Maoist fighter of that name who was killed years ago in an encounter with security forces. “He was our spokesperson at the time, and since then the name, ‘Gudsa,' has remained,” said Ramanna, secretary of the south Bastar regional committee.
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Usendi said the CPI (Maoist) would honour Azad's life and legacy all through the ‘Martyrs Week' from July 28 to August 3. “We shall also honour Shakamuri Apparao and comrade Suryam, a People's Liberation Guerilla Army (PLGA) commissioner, who was killed on May 8 at Narayanpatnam [in Orissa] this year.” While Usendi claimed that the public should not fear any violence or bandhs through the ‘Martyrs Week,' he warned that the Maoists would attack security forces if they entered so-called liberated areas.
The Maoists have maintained that Azad was killed in a “fake encounter” at a time when he was in talks with social activist Swami Agnivesh on the possibility of a ceasefire between the Maoists and the Union government. Both the CPI (Maoist), through its spokesman Gudsa Usendi, and Swami Agnivesh have demanded a judicial inquiry into Azad's death, a demand that has been turned down by the Union Home Ministry.