Nambala Keshava Rao

Nambala Keshava Rao
Portrait of comrade Basavraj.
Born	1955 Jiyannapet, Srikakulam district, Andhra State, India
Died	21 May 2025 Abujhmarh, Chhattisgarh, India
Nationality	Indian
Ideology	Marxism–Leninism–Maoism Naxalism Anti-revisionism
Political party	CPI(Maoist)

Nambala Keshava Rao (1955 – 21 May 2025), also known as Basavraj or Gaganna, was the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). He was on the Indian National Investigation Agency's list of most wanted criminals.

Life and Political Carrer

He was born in 1955 to a peasant family in the Srikakulam district, Andhra Pradesh, in southeastern India, where he also took elemetary and high school. He studied engineering in a college in the neighboring state of Telangana. During his college education, he recognized the situation of India and became involved in the student movement, later joining and gaining prominence in the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War as he later became member of the party’s central committee in 1992.

In 2004, he was one of the many communist leaders to merge the CPI (ML) People's War and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI) to form the CPI (Maoist) and became one of the founders of the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (India).

He served as a Central Committee member for 33 years and of the Politburo for 25 years. He led the Central Military Commission of the CPI (Maoist) for a long time. In the latter part of 2018, the Central Committee elected him as CPI (Maoist) general secretary, succeeding the leadership of Comrade Ganapathy.

Death

He was killed by the Indian fascist regime along with 27 other red martyrs on the 21st of May, 2025 in the Narayanpur district of Chhattisgarh, India.

See also

• Naxalism
• People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (India)
• Communist Party of India (Maoist)
• Charu Majumdar