Nadda accuses Congress of facilitating Jhiram Valley Maoist attack

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president J.P. Nadda on Monday (December 22, 2025) alleged that some Congress insiders facilitated the 2013 Jhiram Ghati Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh, which led to the killing of State Congress leaders.

Thirty-two people, including senior Congress leaders Vidya Charan Shukla, Mahendra Karma and Nand Kumar Patel, had been killed while many sustained injuries in the Jhiram Valley attack on May 25, 2013.

“I was the [BJP] in-charge of Chhattisgarh [back then]. I saw the Jheeram Valley incident. Today, I say this with great responsibility, that no one else was providing information and inside details about the Jhiram Valley incident. People who were among them were involved in getting their own people killed, and they were in contact with Naxalites,” Mr. Nadda alleged while addressing the ‘Janadesh Parab’ (people’s mandate festival) at Janjgir Champa.

The event was held to mark the completion of two years of the Vishnu Deo Sai-led BJP government in Chhattisgarh.

The BJP president further said that a decisive action was taken against Maoism under the double-engine government at the Centre and the State, adding Maoism had now been confined to a limited number of villages and districts in the State.

“Nearly 2,500 Naxalites have surrendered in the last two years, 1,853 have been arrested, and top leaders such as Hidma and Basavaraju neutralised,” he said.

Responding to Nadda’s statement, Senior Congress leader and former Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel called the claim a lie and an insult to those who lost their lives in that attack.

“First of all, security agencies, including the NIA, should interrogate J.P. Nadda and demand proof of his claims. J.P. Nadda! We lost our leaders in the Naxalite attack. You are insulting their martyrdom by accusing them of collusion,” a part of his post on X read.

He accused the BJP of attempting to stall the investigations by filing petitions in court when the Congress Government was in power in the State, at a time when the authorities were trying to find out those behind the attack.”