Chandameta, Chhattisgarh: A surrendered Maoist in Chandameta village in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar division is urging residents of his village to exercise their franchise on November 7.Pandu Markam, 45, worked as a low-level ground worker and joined the Maoists at an early age. He was a part of the Chetna Natya Mandali, the cultural wing of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist) that uses dance, poetry and street plays as a means of political propaganda among villagers to build support for the Maoist cause. His other tasks included taking villagers to dig up the mountains that surround Chandameta, behind which lay Odisha, and providing Maoists with food and rations from his village.Markam, who had a reward on his head, surrendered in October last year after Diwali. Under the Chhattisgarh government’s Naxal surrender and rehabilitation policy, Markam received Rs 10,000 upon his surrender. While the rules also state that he is eligible to get the sum that was his reward, he is yet to receive it as his file is still pending. He visits his family – a wife and eleven children – but he cannot live with them as his life continues to be under threat.“I do feel scared for my life since I have come over to this side. But I was tired of working for them. I wanted to spend time on my farm, be with my family. When I would come home for a few days, my family would be upset that I had come for a short period. When they (Maoists) would call me, I would have to leave again and if I went even a few days late, they would verbally abuse me and question me about what I was doing,” he said to The Wire.Until two years ago, Chandameta was a Maoist stronghold. Almost every family in the village had a member who worked with them. Maoists have receded in the village after a CRPF camp was set up less than two years ago.A smarak set up by Maoists in Chandameta when the village was a stronghold until less than two years ago. Photo: Sravasti Dasgupta/The WireChandameta is one of the 120-odd villages in the Maoist-influenced Bastar division where voters can exercise their franchise in their own place of residence for the first time.Bastar division includes seven districts and has 12 of the 20 assembly constituencies which will go to the polls in the first of two phases on Tuesday.As a handler for the Maoists in the village, Markam would rally villagers against the government, telling them that only the “party” would be able to help them while the government would not do anything for their development.“I was trained in how to speak to villagers and to tell them not to fight among themselves, and to resolve issues through dialogue,” he said.He was also tasked with getting rations from the villagers and providing them to the Naxals.“The villagers would get angry with me and curse at me for getting them to their houses for rations. They would tell me that we don’t have enough rations to feed ourselves but you bring them here and we have to give them whatever little we have. But I had to bring them there, give them the rations – otherwise I would be cursed at as well,” he said.Illustration: Pariplab ChakrabortyMarkam said that he joined the Maoists when he was young but could not remember the year or how old he was then.“They told me, ‘Where will you go if you don’t join us? You will have to live here.’ I did not have an option,” he said.While working for the Maoists, Markam in his testimony to security officials said that he had taken villagers from the area to dig up mountains in Jhiram Ghati for the 2013 Sukma attack that killed Congress leader Mahendra Karma and the party’s entire top state leadership.After the attack, Markam said that he was tasked to bring a group to the village to give them food. As a ground-level worker, he said that he did not ever meet the top leaders and did not know anyone’s names.“They came here to eat food. They were saying ‘we finished Mahendra Karma’,” he recalled.Along with the polling booth, his village has seen many developments recently: electricity arrived only last week, a proper road was built six months ago, and mobile phone towers were installed recently.Of the 80 families that live in the village, almost all have a member who has joined the Maoists at some point. While many have been released, about 10 members of the village are still lodged in Jagdalpur Central Jail for allegedly helping Maoists in the region.“Now the government has provided road, electricity here. I am telling people to go and vote. Earlier, I would tell the villagers not to vote because the government will not give anything,” said Markam.