Maoist movement suffers a serious setback with encounter of Madvi Hidma

The Special Party team of the Alluri Sitharama Raju (ASR) district police gunned down the elusive Maoist Madvi Hidma, alias Santosh, his wife Madakam Raje, alias Rajakka, and four others in an exchange of fire near Nellooru village in Maredumilli Mandal, Alluri Sitharama Raju district, Andhra Pradesh, in the early hours of Tuesday (November 18, 2025).

The encounter reportedly took place between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., and combing operations are still ongoing, said Andhra Pradesh DGP Harish Kumar Gupta.

The killing of Hidma is considered a major blow to the already dwindling Maoist movement, as Hidma had not only eluded security forces for a long time but was also regarded as a military strategist and a fierce fighter. He headed the Central Military Commission (CMC), the main fighting force of the banned CPI (Maoist), and was known for his ability to lead and motivate his fighters with his tactical and combat skills.

Born in 1981 in Sukma, Chhattisgarh (then part of undivided Madhya Pradesh), Hidma was the youngest member of the Central Committee (CC) and the only tribal from the Bastar region to be inducted into the CC, the party’s main think tank and decision-making body, in recent years.

His fighting prowess at a young age attracted the attention of Nambala Keshava Rao, alias Basavaraju, the former General Secretary of the party, who was killed in an encounter in the Abujhmad forest area of Chhattisgarh on May 21, 2025. Hidma quickly rose to lead a battalion of the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA), the Maoist party’s main strike force.

He carried a reward of Rs. 50 lakh and was known to have participated in at least 26 major deadly attacks, including the 2010 attack on the CRPF camp in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, in which 76 CRPF personnel were killed, and the 2013 Jhiram Ghati ambush, in which several Congress leaders, including Mahendra Karma, Chhattisgarh Congress chief Nand Kumar Patel, and Vidya Charan Shukla, were killed.

Nearing the endgame

The Maoist party, once considered the single largest terrorist threat to the country by the Union Government, now appears to be a dying movement. The Union Government, including Minister for Home Affairs Amit Shah, has set a deadline to end the movement by March 2026. In line with this, the government has launched Operation Kagar in Chhattisgarh, the Maoist stronghold, in coordination with other Left-Wing Extremist (LWE)-affected states such as Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Odisha, and West Bengal.

The CPI (Maoist), which once had about 42 CC members in 2004, now has only about 12. This year alone, five CC members, including the party’s General Secretary Basavaraju, were killed, while key members like Mallojula Venugopal Rao, alias Bhupathi, have surrendered.

Hidma was one of the leaders on whom the CC had placed its hopes to revive its military movement. With his killing, it now seems that the endgame is drawing near.