Muppala Lakshmana Rao

Muppala Lakshmana Rao, commonly known by his nom de guerre Ganapathy (otherwise spelt Ganapathi), is a major figure in the Indian Maoist movement and former General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), a banned Maoist insurgent communist party in India. He resigned from the post in November 2018.

Early life Ganapathy was born in Sarangapur, Karimnagar district of Telangana. He is a science graduate and also holds a B.Ed. degree. He worked as a teacher in Karimnagar district but deserted his job to pursue higher education in Warangal.

Other than Ganapathy he is known by several other aliases viz Mupalla Lakshman Rao, Shrinivas, Rajanna, Raji Reddy, Radhakrishna, GP, Chandrasekhar, Azith and CS. with the BBC, and with Rahul Pandita, a journalist from Open magazine and the author of "Hello Bastar" and with Shubhranshu Choudhary a former BBC journalist and writer of "Let's call him Vasu: With Maoists in Chhattisgarh". The total bounty on his head is the highest currently in India, which is 36,000,000. He had been replaced by his second-in-command Nambala Keshava Rao alias Basavaraj in November 2018 due to ill health. Ganapathy had been replaced in his position as Maoist general secretary and is suspected to have fled to the Philippines through Nepal.