BASTAR — Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday visited the CoBRA Operations Base at Karanpur in Chhattisgarh's Bastar district to celebrate Diwali with security personnel and laud their courage and sacrifices in the fight against Naxalism. The facility has served as a training centre and launchpad for counter-Naxal operations in the Bastar region and Abujhmad, once considered major strongholds of the Maoist insurgency, IANS reported.

Source: IANS

"After 40–50 years, a Diwali like this has come. This is the first Diwali when the nation has won its decades-long war against Naxalism and Maoist terror. This is the first Diwali when every district of the country is free from Naxalism. This is the first Diwali when crores of countrymen have overcome the fear of Naxalism," the Prime Minister told the personnel, according to IANS.

The address followed the Prime Minister's Diwali-morning announcement that he was travelling to Bastar, a region where Naxalism once held sway, to salute the security forces. Read: Modi heads to Bastar for Diwali with security forces

Modi said the fight against Maoist terror had not been easy: more than 230 districts in nearly 20 states were once affected by Naxalism. He said decisions taken by his government had dealt very big blows to the funding of Naxals and secessionists, destroyed the fake-currency nexus and choked their supply lines, PTI reported in a series of alerts from the address.

Source: PTI

The Prime Minister also told the gathering that, for the first time in 47 years, not a single CRPF jawan has lost his life on duty in the past year, PTI reported. "You are all members of my family. This time, I have arrived to celebrate Diwali in the Bastar forests. This is a territory where Naxalism used to be a significant threat. However, because of your sacrifice and commitment, that threat has been eliminated in this area, and a new era of development has started," he said, according to IANS.

The declaration caps a sequence of official announcements: the government said on March 31, 2026 that the country was free from the menace of Maoism, and Home Minister Amit Shah later declared Bastar Naxal-free in May 2026. State Congress leaders in Chhattisgarh have previously contested claims that Naxalism has been completely eradicated, a dispute the Prime Minister's Bastar address is likely to sharpen.