Ranchi, April 12: It is official. In the latest issue of its mouthpiece, People’s March, CPI (Maoist) has laid down its plans to develop Dandakaranya (Chhattisgarh) and B-J Area (Bihar-Jharkhand) as “base areas”.

It also acknowledges that it has suffered reverses in Andhra Pradesh and has made a strategic retreat from there, at least temporarily.

The party claims to have held its 9th party congress somewhere in Jharkhand in February this year after a gap of 37 years.

Adding to the discomfiture of the government, the rebels appear to have resolved that they would intervene in all the “people’s struggles”, specially those pertaining to displacement by SEZs. Dams, mining, urban development etc.

Noting that people, including traders, peasants, workers and Dalits, are breaking out into spontaneous protests, CPI (Maoist) chief Ganapathi is quoted as saying that all this presents an “excellent situation to advance the armed struggle”.

“Even though the state forces have resorted to the policy of ‘burn-all, kill all’ under the banner of Salwa Judum, the party has been able to effectively hit back and push the genocidal forces to the defensive,” the report said.

In Bihar-Jharkhand too the party has effectively countered the Sendra and paramilitary counterinsurgency forces and spread the movement in vast areas, it claimed.

Maoists admit to 130 “military actions” during the past two years in which 485 weapons were seized and 315 policemen were “wiped out”.

It was also time to finalise and urban policy and advance into urban areas, added Ganapathi.

Admitting a weakness in resolving disputes, he states: “When differences arose in 1985 in PW, we were not able to deal with it properly and so it led to a split. Again in 1992 in PW we could not resolve the differences properly. In the erstwhile MCC there were also differences in 2001-02 and the opportunist Bharat-Badal group left the party. We must understand how to settle differences...only then we will advance.”

The report has alarmed officials who expect Maoist violence to escalate in Santhal Pargana and in areas bordering Munger in Bihar.