The Rise And Fall Of ‘Lady Singham’ B Chandrakala

B Chandrakala, a 2008-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, had garnered a fan following across Uttar Pradesh and was often hailed as ‘lady singham’ or a ‘dabangg’ for being an anti-corruption crusader. Now, the officer is under the scanner of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) over an alleged mining scam during the tenure of the Samajwadi Party (SP).

The CBI has raided several locations across UP and Delhi which also included Chandrakala’s apartment in Lucknow. She is accused of allocating mining contracts in Hamirpur in violation of e-tender provisions. She earlier served as the district magistrate of Hamirpur and the allegations of corruption were levelled against her during her tenure there.

She is also accused of extortion from lease-holders of patches for mining and drivers of the vehicles engaged in mining. In addition to this, the officer is also being probed for amassing a string of movable and immovable assets during her stint at Mathura (read this).

Her numerous properties and a sudden spike in her wealth are also under the scanner. Objections had earlier been raised over her involvement in resuming operations at a meat plant, which had earlier been shut down due to the efforts of a former Bharatiya Janata Party lawmaker.

Chandrakala is accused along with several others including officials and people with political affiliations, which include Dinesh Kumar Mishra (brother of SP member of legislative council Ramesh Mishra), Ram Ashrey Prajapati (then mining clerk), Ambika Tiwari, (related to Dinesh and Ramesh Mishra), Sanjay Dixit (a Bahujan Samaj Party leader), Ram Avtar Singh (a retired mining clerk), Karan Singh (a lease holder) and Adil Khan, an illegal miner.

The IAS officer has enjoyed immense popularity on social media and at one point had more followers on Facebook than Akhilesh Yadav and Arvind Kejriwal.

The Times of India has reported that Chandrakala hired an agency for brand-building on social media that shared custom-made videos with news channels and social media sites to enhance her image as a lady crusader against a corrupt system. Her videos scolding a contractor in Bulandshahr and punishing a boy wanting to take a selfie with her went viral on Internet.

Other than Hamirpur and Mathura, where she is accused of indulging in wrongdoings, Chandrakala had also served in Bulandshahr and Meerut, from where she was sent on deputation to New Delhi to look after the Swachh Bharat Mission in March 2017. She later returned to her UP cadre in 2018 and served in the secondary education department. She is presently on study leave.

The IAS officer is also deemed to be close to Gayatri Prajapati, who was the mining minister at the time of the alleged scam. Prajapati has multiple accusations against him ranging from corruption to gang-rape of a woman and her minor daughter.