NEW DELHI: Chhattisgarh witnessed over 70% of the Left-wing extremist (LWE) violence recorded across the country last year, even as all-India incidents and resulting fatalities declined by 25% as compared to 2019, the home ministry told the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday.
Sharing all-India statistics on Maoist terror for the period 2019-2024, junior home minister Nityanand Rai, in reply to a question, said that incidents were down from 501 in 2019 to 374 in 2024, “a reduction of 25%”. The total number of civilian and security forces deaths combined, also declined by 26% over the six-year period, he added.
Though incidents of LWE violence had started to decline in 2019, falling to 470 in 2020 and 361 in 2021, they again picked up in 2022 and 2023. While 2022 witnessed 413 cases of LWE perpetrated violence, the figure rose further to 485 in 2023. Rai on Wednesday explained that the rise in violence in 2022 and 2023 was on account of stepped up counter-operations, which saw the security forces enter the core areas of CPI (Maoist).
The minister further said the spread of Naxalites’ influence was shrinking, with the LWE-affected districts down from 126 districts to 90 in April 2018, and then further to 70 by July 2021. As of April 2024, the total number of LWE-hit districts stood at 38.
Statewise, incidents of Naxalism in Chhattisgarh rose between 2021 and 2023 — understandably, due to the heightened engagement with the Maoists in their ‘core’ areas — but were down in 2024. The second most affected state was Jharkhand in 2024, though incidents fell sharply to 69 incidents from 166 in 2019. Other LWE-affected states — Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telangana, Odisha, Bihar Andhra Pradesh — witnessed only a handful of incidents last year.
Only last week, home minister Amit Shah had reiterated in the Rajya Sabha that Left-wing extremism would be wiped out from the country by March 31, 2026.
