Despite repeated denials by top Nepali Maoist leaders that they have no “working relationship” with Maoists in India, there’s information that the two parties did meet — as recently as early this month. This has significant implications at a time when New Delhi is planning a concerted campaign against the Maoists.

Rajdhani, a national newspaper here, has reported that senior leaders from both sides, including Kishenji — CPI (Maoist) leader currently holed up in West Bengal and considered to lead the group’s operations in the east — and Indra Mohan Sigdel ‘Basanta’ from the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) met at an undisclosed location in India between October 8 and 11.

This is the first such meeting after the two sides met under the aegis of the CCOMPOSA (Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisations of South Asia), a grouping in which Indian and Nepali Maoist parties are the major constituents.

The meeting, according to the report, was a follow-up to a resolution of the CPN-M Central Committee three months ago to hold regular interactions between CCOMPOSA and its global umbrella group, the Revolutionnaire International.

While Indian Maoist leader Ganapathi recently termed Nepali Maoists as “revisionist”, Nepali Maoist leaders, including Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai, have said there is no working relationship between the two parties.

The CPN-M has not yet said anything in public about the recent meeting in India. Sigdel, also a member of the CPN-M’s foreign cell, is now back in Nepal after participating in the meeting.

... contd.