Representative image. Prime Minister's Office, Government of India, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Why it matters
Bastar was for years one of the main battlegrounds of the Maoist insurgency, and the Prime Minister has now staked his Diwali message on the claim that the fight is won. The figures he gave, including the CRPF death count, are his own and will shape the political argument over who gets credit and what the earlier governments did.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi spent Diwali on 8 November 2026 with security personnel in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar, and used the Modi Bastar Diwali visit to claim that India has won its long fight against Naxalism. He told the troops that this was the first Diwali in which every district of the country was free of Naxal violence, and that not one CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) jawan had died on duty in the past year, the first such year in 47 years, according to reports by The Indian Express, Hindustan Times and India Today.
The visit was to the CoBRA Operations Base at Karanpur in Bastar district, a report carried by The Hans India said. CoBRA (Commando Battalion for Resolute Action) is a CRPF unit, and the base was used for training and as a launch point for operations in Bastar and Abujhmad, once seen as the strongest Maoist areas.
What Modi said in Bastar
Modi opened by calling the troops part of his family. He said this was land where Naxal terror had once caused havoc, and that their sacrifice had ended it and started a wave of development, The Indian Express reported.
He then laid out the scale of the old problem as he saw it. More than 230 districts in nearly 20 states were once affected by Naxalism, he said, and life in those places stopped after dark. India Today quoted him saying the country had seen as many as 2,000 Naxal attacks in a single year, and that Naxalites had taken away people’s right to vote in some areas.
The figure he returned to most was about casualties. For a long time, he said, more soldiers were killed than Naxalites. Then, in the past year, no CRPF jawan lost his life in the line of duty. He called it a victory for the right policies and strong political will, according to both The Indian Express and India Today.
Hindustan Times reported him saying that crores of Indians had overcome the fear of Naxalism this Diwali, and that the credit belonged to the soldiers and security personnel in front of him.
The attack on earlier governments
A large part of the speech was about governments before 2014. Modi said the political will to fight internal threats was missing until then, India Today reported. He cited the years 2004 to 2013, saying more security personnel were killed each year than Naxalites in that period, and said governments of the time treated Naxalism as an incurable disease.
He recalled two attacks in Dantewada district in 2010: one in which 76 CRPF personnel were killed, and another that year in which 44 civilians died. He said more than 1,000 security personnel had been killed in Chhattisgarh alone over the years, and that no anguish was heard from influential leaders at the time, India Today reported.
Hindustan Times quoted him saying earlier governments kept the hands of security forces tied, so they could not hit back openly after attacks. His government, he said, gave the forces freedom to make decisions on the ground and also worked to stop support that some people inside the system had given to left-wing extremism.
The speech was a direct criticism of the Congress-led UPA (United Progressive Alliance) governments of 2004 to 2014. The reports read for this article, checked at about 1:15 pm, did not carry a response from the Congress.
Modi also brought up poverty. He said a World Bank report released a few days before Diwali found that 50 crore people in India had come out of extreme poverty in 12 years, The Indian Express reported. That is his description of the report; NewsPlainly did not read the report itself for this article.
How the Naxal-free claim came about
The Bastar visit follows the Centre’s declaration on 31 March 2026 that the country had been freed from Naxalism, after several senior leaders and cadres were killed and hundreds of others surrendered, The Indian Express noted. Bastar, in southern Chhattisgarh, was one of the main areas of that conflict, as the Prime Minister himself noted in his speech.
The claim about CRPF casualties is not new this week. On the same theme, NewsPlainly earlier reported the CRPF chief’s statement that the force had no operational fatality in a year. What changed on Sunday is that the Prime Minister made it the centre of his Diwali message, on the ground where the worst of the fighting took place.
Before leaving for Bastar, Modi posted on X that he was going to an area where Naxalism once held sway and where development was now flourishing, to salute the forces for their service. On 7 November he had said in a video message that he would keep his habit of spending the festival with security personnel.
Modi Bastar Diwali in context: his visits since 2014
Modi has spent every Diwali as Prime Minister with the armed forces or other security personnel. Hindustan Times listed the places. Set side by side, they show how different this year’s choice is: every earlier stop was on a border, the Line of Control, a high mountain post or a warship. Bastar is the first in the country’s interior, picked for an internal security fight rather than an external one.
| Year | Where Modi spent Diwali |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Siachen base camp |
| 2015 | Punjab sector near Amritsar |
| 2016 | Sumdoh, Himachal Pradesh, near the China border |
| 2017 | Gurez sector, Jammu and Kashmir |
| 2018 | Harsil, Uttarakhand |
| 2019 | Rajouri, along the Line of Control |
| 2020 | Longewala, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan |
| 2021 | Nowshera, Jammu and Kashmir |
| 2022 | Kargil |
| 2023 | Lepcha, Himachal Pradesh |
| 2024 | Sir Creek, Kutch, Gujarat |
| 2025 | Aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, off the Goa and Karwar coast |
| 2026 | CoBRA base, Karanpur, Bastar, Chhattisgarh |
That makes Bastar his 13th Diwali with the forces as Prime Minister, by NewsPlainly’s count of the list.
What the claims rest on
The numbers in the speech are the Prime Minister’s own. The 47-year mark for CRPF deaths, the count of 230 districts and the 2004 to 2013 comparison were stated by him and have not been checked against official tables for this article.
He compared the work of personnel who protect the country’s internal security with that of troops on the borders, and said he had come to Bastar on behalf of 140 crore Indians to thank them, India Today reported.
Frequently asked questions
Where did PM Modi celebrate Diwali in 2026?
At the CoBRA Operations Base at Karanpur in Bastar district, Chhattisgarh, on 8 November 2026, with security personnel, The Hans India reported.
What did Modi say about CRPF deaths?
He said not one CRPF jawan lost his life in the line of duty in the past year, which he called the first time in 47 years.
When was India declared free of Naxalism?
The Centre declared on 31 March 2026 that the country had been freed from Naxalism, The Indian Express reported.
Where did Modi spend Diwali in 2025?
Aboard the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant off the Goa and Karwar coast, Hindustan Times reported.