When contractor Suresh Chandrakar, the prime suspect in the murder of his relative and Chhattisgarh journalist Mukesh Chandrakar, got married in 2021, it became the talk of the town in the Maoist-hit Bijapur. It was a wedding the scale of which the town had never seen, with a private helicopter hired to transport Suresh’s bride from Jagdalpur and foreign dancers performing at the event.
The lavish wedding highlighted the meteoric rise of Suresh from his modest beginnings of being a cook and a Special Police Officer in the now outlawed militia Salwa Judum to a private contractor hired for the state government’s multi-crore road projects — all in a matter of 10 years.
The son of a serving constable in the Maoist-affected Basaguda, Suresh, 42, was arrested earlier last week for allegedly having Mukesh killed over a news report on a road project that he had undertaken.
When the Salwa Judum was disbanded following a Supreme Court ruling in 2011, Suresh, a school dropout, began taking up small-scale building contracts. But it wasn’t until November 2015 that he got his major break. This came in the form of a government contract for a 32.4 km section of the Nelesnar-Gangalur road. For Suresh, the project was a massive breakthrough given its cost — Rs 54 crore.
“The road was first sanctioned in 2010 but no Class A contractor — those with no limit on contract value — was coming here due to the Maoist threat. This enabled Suresh and four others, who were Class B (contractors who could take up projects only up to Rs 10 crore), to apply,” said a source.
According to sources from the state’s Public Works Department, the project was meant to be completed by July 2016 but its deadline kept getting extended, causing costs to inflate. By July 2021, its revised cost had shot up to Rs 141 crore.
“He has completed 24.9 km of the 32.4 km given to him,” a PWD official said. “Apart from this road, Suresh also had two more road contracts in Bijapur for which he has already been paid over Rs 2 crore.”
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Having joined the Congress in the early 2010s, he was also made an “election observer” in Maharashtra Assembly polls last year. On its part, the Congress has admitted he was a worker, but also claimed that he had “joined the BJP in December”. The Congress has not provided any proof to back this claim.
Political Pulse