Senior leader of the CPI-Maoist Gudsa Usendi, alias G.V.K. Prasad, has said that a combination of reasons, ranging from ideological differences to health concerns, compelled him to leave the party.
He accused his former party chief of falsifying facts and initiating “personal attacks” against him and his partner. While acknowledging that he was in a live-in relationship with Santoshi Markam, who left the party with him a week ago, Mr. Prasad said he and his wife had agreed mutually to separate. Ms. Markam also signed the statement Mr. Prasad mailed to The-Hindu.
Telugu-speaking Mr. Prasad and Gond tribal Ms. Markam were associated with the CPI-Maoist for years. They surrendered to the Andhra Pradesh police last week. Soon afterwards, the party’s chief in Dandkarnya area, Ramanna, issued an audio statement calling Mr. Prasad a “traitor” and accused him of “moral misdemeanour.”
Rebuttal
In a point-by-point rebuttal, the couple said they could no longer live the life of a Maoist guerrilla inside the Dandakarnya forest. Countering Mr. Rammana’s accusation that the “renegade spokesperson” had never spoken about his ideological differences with the party earlier, Mr. Prasad listed the issues he was opposed to.
“I was strongly opposing the destruction of school buildings right from 2008…the central committee leadership was well aware of this. I also opposed the indiscriminate killing of adivasis in the name of destroying informer network… I wrote several letters to the central leadership and constantly discussed with the rank and file,” said Mr. Prasad.
Interestingly, in several interviews to this correspondent in 2010, Mr. Prasad defended everything he is opposing now. “We have to kill informers,” Mr. Prasad said in 2010.
“If we don’t, we will not be able to survive. We give them several warnings, but if they still divulge information [to the police] we kill them.”
However, sources close to Mr. Prasad told TheHindu over phone that the spokesperson had not participated in any ambush, as reported. “A lot has been written about Prasad’s role in all big Maoist ambushes [in Chhattisgarh]…but he was usually hundreds of kilometres away. He had to defend them as a spokesperson,” said a source on condition of anonymity.
Mr. Prasad and Ms. Markam did not deny that the sheer physical challenge of leading a guerrilla life was taking its toll.
“…We have been suffering from health problems and that is mainly the reason for our surrender. I have been suffering from serious spinal problems for a long time. And, of late, my partner Santoshi has been diagnosed with a hole in her heart. She needs immediate surgery.”
In a nearly 20-minute-long audio statement, Mr. Ramanna strongly denounced the erstwhile spokesperson’s decision to surrender, calling him a “morally flawed” individual.
“He was once suspended by the party in 1993 for moral misdemeanour, but was re-inducted after repeated requests,” Mr. Ramanna alleged in a statement to TheHindu on Sunday.
He said Mr. Prasad left his wife Raje with the party and ran away with a tribal woman.
Mr. Prasad said he informed the party way back in 2003 about his marital problems with his wife, Ms. Raje, whom he married in 2001.
They finally separated in 2011. “I told Raje I was seeking a formal separation. She understood the problem and agreed [to separate] after initial hesitation.”
Mr. Prasad said the Maoist movement, hit by a recent spate of surrenders, would continue to grow. However, the couple would rather address, in their own way, the problems of the “downtrodden, particularly the adivasis.”
