Union home min Amit Shah to chair high-level LWE strategy meet in Chhattisgarh ahead of Mar 31 deadline

RAIPUR: Union Home Minister Amit Shah arrived in Raipur on Saturday on a three-day visit to Chhattisgarh, during which he will chair an extensive review meeting on Left Wing Extremism (LWE) and attend the closing ceremony of the Bastar Pandum 2026.

On Sunday, the Union home minister will chair a marathon, over six-hour-long high-level security review meeting on LWE, beginning at around 11 am. The meeting will be attended by the additional chief secretaries (home) of LWE-affected states, directors general of police of of Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand, senior intelligence officials and top commanders of the CRPF.Shah landed at Raipur airport nearly 45 minutes ahead of his scheduled arrival and was received by chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai, deputy chief minister Vijay Sharma, MPs and MLAs. From the airport, he proceeded directly to a hotel in Nava Raipur Atal Nagar, where he held an initial round of meetings with the chief minister and senior state officials.According to top officials, the deliberations will focus on the final push to eliminate residual Maoist presence before the Centre’s March 31 deadline.

Security agencies estimate that over 150 Maoist cadres are still hiding in forested areas, largely refusing to surrender. Intelligence assessments suggest that the remaining cadres are operating in small, fragmented groups of four to five, a sharp contrast to earlier years when Maoists moved in formations of 20 to 40. Many have reportedly discarded uniforms and weapons, blending into villages as agricultural or daily-wage labourers, or have suspended armed movement altogether — a shift that has complicated intelligence-gathering and tracking operations.Inter-state coordination, intelligence-sharing mechanisms, force deployment in border and dense forest zones, and logistics support for forward-operating units will be key focus areas of discussion.Officials said that while anti-Naxal operations are continuing daily, the decline in actionable inputs following large-scale surrenders has led to a reduction in encounter-related killings, making detection and neutralisation of the remaining cadres more challenging.The meeting will also review recent security inputs, including an attempted transportation of explosives from Odisha’s Jeypore towards Bijapur, in which Maoists allegedly hired a pickup vehicle. Security forces intercepted the vehicle before it reached its destination, seizing around 4,000 cordex wires and gelatin sticks, which were allegedly meant for planting IEDs in the Karegutta forested hills and parts of south Bastar.Officials said Shah has issued clear instructions to security forces to maintain operational intensity till the very last moment, cautioning against lowering their guard despite the weakening of the Maoist network.The review comes against the backdrop of the Centre’s enhanced financial push in LWE-affected areas. The Union govt has approved a 20% hike in allocations for LWE regions, taking the outlay to over ₹30k crore, with a renewed emphasis on ensuring last-mile delivery of central welfare and development schemes in previously inaccessible pockets.Later on Sunday, Shah will attend a national conclave themed ‘Chhattisgarh @ 25: Shifting the Lens’, organised by a private weekly magazine.On Monday, the Union home minister will travel to Jagdalpur to attend the closing ceremony of Bastar Pandum 2026, where he will be the chief guest. Shah is scheduled to return to Delhi on Monday evening.