For Mahendra Karma's wife, the November 11 election is a battle to redeem the legacy of the 'Bastar Tiger' who founded the Salwa Judum and was considered a symbol of the tribals' fight back against Maoists before he was killed along with top Chhattisgarh Congress leaders in May.
An assortment of sophisticated weaponry belonging to security personnel, including 10 AK-series rifles, were carried off by the Naxals from the site of the encounter on Monday in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh which left 14 Central Reserve Police Force jawans dead and over a dozen others injured.
On May 25, 2013, Naxals ambushed the Congress leaders' convoy in Jiram valley of Bastar's Darbha region.
Upset over the defeat of several of Congress's sitting Members of Legislative Assembly in the Chhattisgarh assembly elections, state Congress chief Charandas Mahant blamed it on "internal sabotage" on Sunday evening.
Chief Minister Ajit Jogi said she will visit the tribal dominated Bastar and Sarguja districts on the first day and address two party rallies in their district headquarters Jagdalpur and Ambikapur.
He challenged the Congress to select someone 'capable' as its president, who did not belong to 'that one family'.
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Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde on Wednesday vowed to take "revenge" for Tuesday's Naxal ambush in which 15 security personnel and a civilian were killed in Chhattisgarh's Sukma district, saying the attack could be an attempt to disrupt the Lok Sabha polls.
Post K Durga Prasad's retirement as the last full-time chief of the Central Reserved Police Force on February 28, the Union home ministry had appointed Additional DG Sudeep Lakhtakia to hold the charge in "additional" capacity.
As round one of the seven-phase Lok Sabha election began in 91 constituencies across the length and breadth of India, from the hills of Kashmir to the islands of Andaman and Nicobar, reports of unrest and irregularities cast shadows over the world's biggest poll process.
The poll process in Chhattisgarh, which goes to assembly elections in two phases on November 11 and 19, was initiated on Friday with the issue of notification by Governor Shekhar Dutt.
Eight wanted Naxals, three of them carrying rewards on their heads, were arrested from separate places in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Bastar region on Thursday, the police said.
From walking up to 10 kms to crossing rivers and spending nights in Naxal-hit areas, the poll officers will have to go past numerous hurdles and face life-threatening challenges to do their duty, but none of them is complaining.
Fourteen Naxals including four women were arrested in two separate operations in the insurgency-hit regions of Chhattisgarh today, police said.
Communication, dated February 17 to all state governments, said the CPI (Maoist) planned to capture attention once again
Avenging the Sukma attack, security forces claim to have gunned down 12-15 Maoists in Chhattisgarh's Basaguda-Chintalnar area on Sunday.
The Congress has demanded immediate removal of the nodal officer appointed by Chhattisgarh government to assist National Investigation Agency probing the Darbha valley Maoist attack in which senior Congress leaders were killed on May 25.
Tribal teacher Soni Sori and her activist-nephew Lingaram Kodopi were released from Jagdalpur jail on Thursday after the Supreme Court granted them bail following their arrest two years ago for allegedly receiving money on behalf of Maoists from a corporate house in Chhattisgarh.
'The police go into villages, kill villagers, rape women, burn homes, file false cases.' 'They want to empty Bastar of the tribals so that corporate houses can be given a free hand in our land.' 'My father was killed by Naxalites. This is very ironical because the police accuse me of being a Naxalite. If I had been a Naxalite, would I not have been able to prevent my father's death?'
The survey will benefit a population of at least 35,000, mainly tribals, to get patta (title deed) for the land they were possessing.
Ahead of the all-party meet called by the government to discuss the naxal situation, the Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday said it will serve no purpose unless a comprehensive strategy is devised to deal with the problem.
'BJP ministers in Chhattisgarh were arrogant'
Around 30 per cent polling was recorded till noon on Tuesday in 72 constituencies spread over 19 districts of Chhattisgarh where voting for the second and last phase of Assembly polls is underway.
Altogether 13 Maoist ultras including a woman were killed in an encounter with security forces inside a forest in Malkangiri district early on Saturday while another rebel was captured. The Maoist group that camped there was suspected to have been involved in the May 25 attack on a Congress convoy in Bastar district of Chhattisgarh that killed senior party leaders V C Shukla, Mahendra Karma and about 19 others.
The ambitious plan to deploy such a large number of women personnel in most challenging combat theatres.
Congress General Secretary Digvijaya Singh on Thursday alleged that lack of coordination between the security forces and the state police was leading to rise in Naxal violence in Chhattisgarh, and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party government of having a nexus with ultras for political gains.
Maoists took 250 villagers hostage in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh hours before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to neighbouring Dantewada but freed all the captives late on Saturday night barring one who was beaten to death after being tried in a 'people's court'.
The dome over a stage being erected for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's public rally at Naya Raipur on Saturday collapsed in severe storm, forcing cancellation of his engagements there.
Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh refuses to 'retreat in the face of threats'.
Encouraged by their initiatives which resulted in high voter turnout in Naxal-hit areas, officers in Chhattisgarh's Chief Electoral Office are hopeful of a similar trend in 72 constituencies going to polls on Tuesday.
Ever since the Election Commission sounded the poll bugle on March 5, over 800 kg of explosives and 127 improvised bombs have been recovered by security forces from across Naxal violence-hit areas.
The Union home ministry on Tuesday ruled out involvement of the army in anti-Naxal operations but said more paramilitary forces will be deployed for intensified operations in Maoists-hit areas to flush out the extremists.
He said the government was committed to protecting their rights. It was committed to working on the path of development and asked them to educate their children.
Fearing imminent arrest and likely reprisals from the CRPF -- 25 of whose jawans were gunned down by the Maoists inside a jungle just 200 to 300 metres away from their homes on the afternoon of April 24 -- young Adivasi men and women in Burkapal abandoned their homes and fled into the jungle.
The Maoists squad 'very discreetly with the aid of locals' kept tracking the movement of the troops when one party of 36, out of the total three, sat down for launch, the strong squad of Naxals, possessing sophisticated weapons, took them by surprise.
An injured jawan said around 10-12 Naxalites must have got killed in the 'befitting' retaliation by the CRPF contingent.
The jawans are helping farmers in ploughing their fields
"It is certain that the information about their movement was leaked. Somewhere or at some stage this has happened. The boys were doing a surprise non-operational movement and hence were in mufti. We are looking into it," CRPF Director General K Durga Prasad said.
'Maoists are enraged that the media is reporting the truth.' 'They want to physically isolate the media and psychologically isolate the villagers who have found the confidence to speak to the press about the real situation.' 'Like terrorism ended in Punjab, Naxalism will end in Chhattisgarh,' the AIIMS doctor-turned IPS officer and SP of Dantewada tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih.
The Lok Sabha election will be held in 7 phases, beginning on April 11, 2019 and ending on May 19, 2019.
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