The dangerous trend of politician-left-wing extremist (Naxalite) nexus continues to be alive in Andhra Pradesh. It needs to be rooted out, sooner than later, if peace is ever to come to the region. On 19 September 2003, the vernacular Telugu media reported that a district-level people’s representative, Nanam Rajareddy, representing Mallapur Zilla Praja Parishad Territorial Constituency, in the Karimanagr Zilla Praja Parishad, Andhra Pradesh (AP) has been apprehended by police on the night of 18 September for providing help to People’s War Group (PWG) Naxalites. His links with the PWG are reportedly 15 years old.

There have been reports of similar instances of political leaders aiding the Naxalites in the past. These ‘leaders’ procure medicine, arrange uniforms and, what is more, also organize the supply of explosives to the guerrillas. In a shocking incident, in December 2001, a group of village-level leaders were arrested for helping a Naxal plot to blast a police station. Flaunting their position of importance, those ‘leaders’ befriended the local police and repeatedly visited Kataram police station, Karimnagar, studied and memorized its architecture and passed on the details to a PWG squad that plotted to blow-up the police station ahead of its inaugural in early January 2002. Incidentally, that police station is a model ‘extremist police station’ (EPS) specifically designed to withstand an armed attack.

The reasons for this nexus are not far to seek. Many political leaders harbour sympathy for the Naxalites and their armed movement. On conditions of anonymity, several authorities admit this fact, but, understandably decline to go on record or provide names of such political leaders, both big and small.

Another facet is that, both the Naxalites and the politicians make use of one another. It was certainly the case with Rajareddy, as the police told the media following his arrest. Rajareddy had strong and active links with the district-level leadership of the PWG. He provided shelter, in the past, to the district committee secretary, Padma, and other leaders as well as to its cadres. At the same time, he took their help to settle personal scores.

Further, a lady Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), a protégé of her husband, in Warangal district, accompanied her husband and went to pay ‘homage’ to Polam Sudarshan Reddy ‘Rama Krishna’, a senior leader of the PWG following his death in an encounter with the police on March 25, 2003. Rama Krishna, an accused in 1042 criminal offences, was a member of the North Telengana Special Zone Committee (NTSZC) and secretary of the Karimngar West-Nizamabad division. Earlier he was the PWG’s Warangal district committee secretary. The MLA’s husband had close links with ‘Rama Krishna’, helped him in numerous ways and had sought his help to physically eliminate his political rivals in the district, including allegedly a Minister.

Indeed, a former Chief Minister of AP, N T Rama Rao, had publicly praised the Naxalites as ‘patriots’ and thus indirectly sought their support when he first contested in the polls to the AP Legislature, in 1983. This was stated by the Bharatiya Janata Party in its submission, in 1997, to the Advocates Committee on Naxalite Terrorism in Andhra Pradesh. The AP High Court had appointed the Committee on April 4, 1997. Speaking before the same Committee, two former Congress Ministers ‘categorically admitted that, at the time of every election, theirs’ as well as those of the Telugu Desam Party (TDP), buy the support of the extremists’.. A senior and highly respected Communist leader from the State, Koratala Satyanarayana, was of the opinion that this has been the case for the ‘last 30 to 40 years’.

Moreover, the Naxalites have ruthlessly executed political leaders, who they thought have ‘harmed’ their ‘cause’. In April 2000, they killed a former Speaker of the Andhra Pradesh Legislature accusing him of being responsible for intense security force operations against them. Also, in a recent incident, the Naxalites, media reports of July 2, 2003 said, killed the Kalwakolu Mandal Praja Parishad (MPP) member and the Sarpanch of Kollapur, both in Mahabubnagar district.

In the wake of the Naxalites using such coercive methods, some political leaders ‘fall in line’ while some others let themselves be ejected from the political field by resigning from their respective posts and retreating into temporary retirement from politics. On July 1, several elected leaders––MMP members of Mamillapalli, Taduru and Upparapalli, all in Mahabubnagar district––resigned from their posts. Furthermore, organization leaders of Amrabad and Linagala mandals of the TDP, the ruling party in AP, quit their party membership complying with a PWG ‘directive’. The objective of the Naxalites is to capture political power, relying especially on ‘force’..  Therefore, their plan is to force out the existing political leadership and institutions of civil governance into retreat, in order that they would go on to occupy them. Unless the politicians collectively stand up to this terrorist violence and decide to keep the Naxalites at bay, the nexus whether willing or expedient, would continue to be alive.