Naxals focus on Vizag trade units

By SNV Sudhir

Visakhapatnam, July 4: The CPI ML Praja Prathighatana is expanding its operations to north coastal Andhra districts and has started recruiting activists from the district. The party has hitherto been active only in some Telangana districts and its activists are popularly known as PPG Naxals.

Sources said the PPG Naxals felt that the unrest in the industrial areas of the district gave them a fertile opportunity to set up a base there. Their intention is to work among both the organised and unorganised working class of the district and spread their ideology among them. They are also trying to gain influence among the fisherfolk.

The CPI (Maoists), who have been in this region since 1980s, had failed to build up a big influence in North Andhra unlike other Marxist Leninist political formations which have trade union fronts and actively take up issues related to the working class. The PPG has also been trying to wield influence through trade unions in the Telangana region and is now trying to replicate the formula in the district.

One of the PPG Naxals’ trade union leaders, A. Moses, was gunned down in an exchange of fire between the Greyhounds and extremists in the forests near Paloncha of Khammam district. Moses was the president of the IFTU-affiliated Auto Workers’ Union of Hyderabad. The PPG Naxals are focusing on Vizag since there are more than a dozen public sector units and many private industries, big, small and medium, in the suburbs.

More than one lakh people earn a living from these industries directly or indirectly and the PPG Naxals are planning to inspire and support agitations by these workers. Though important CPI Maoist activists use the industrial suburbs as a shelter, they have not tried to intervene in such trade union issues directly or through their frontal organisations.

Police got an inkling of the PPG Naxals’ plans after finding some propaganda material and posters in Dibbapalem village where the new Ganagavaram private port is coming up. The CPI ML (Praja Prathighatana) was formed in 1994 as a splinter group by those who were against the policies of CPI (ML) Prathighatana.

A second rung leader, Chalamanna, led the movement supported by women’s leaders like Radhakka (wife of Chandra Pulla Reddy, an active member of Prathighatana group). Later, the group split again with Radhakka forming a separate group, ‘Godavari Loya Prathighatana’, which further split.

Of these groups, the one led by Mohan emerged stronger, and commanded at least ten dalams in Khammam, Warangal and Karimnagar districts. This group recently made attempts to float a legal organisation on the lines of CPI (ML) New Democracy and held a meeting at Paloancha to discuss the possibilities of a trade union movement for unorganised labourers.

It is to be suspected that the PPG Naxals have chosen the Dibbapalem village for their experiment as the fisherfolk who would be displaced by the Gangavaram Private Port have been agitating for a rehabilitation package. The recent crisis at Gangavaram private port leading to police firing and repeated clashes between the administration and agitating fisherfolk has created a fertile situation for the PPG Naxals.

Police who were keeping a close watch on the Dibbapalem village found evidence to prove PPG activity. Apart from the discovery of the propaganda material, police also learnt that a woman who has links with the PPG naxals and residing Dibbapalem went missing recently.

"We have information about a Naxal module operating in the Dibbapalem and Gangavaram villages," said the City Police Commissioner, Mr N. Sambasiva Rao. "We are keeping a close watch on all trade union activities." Another senior police officer said there was also information that PPG Naxals were moving in the industrial suburbs and were trying to set up a base there.