An Ahmedabad civic office was locked by BJP corporator Jitendra Chouhan on Friday after he alleged that essential works in the Shahpur ward were being delayed, triggering a dispute between the elected representative and Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation officials.
Chouhan, who represents the Shahpur-Dudheshwar area, reached the municipal office in Dudheshwar and locked the office of the assistant city engineer. A party worker accompanying him also raised slogans against the municipal administration. The corporator said that basic civic works, citizen-facility projects and works proposed under the corporator’s budget were not being completed.
According to the report by Nav Gujarat Samay – Ahmedabad, Chouhan warned that other municipal offices could also be locked if residents’ complaints continued to go unresolved. He also said that Municipal Commissioner M. Thennarasan should resign if the administration was unable to address the issues raised by citizens.
Chouhan said complaints relating to water supply and drainage were particularly high in the Shahpur ward, which lies within Ahmedabad’s old city area. He claimed that residents frequently gathered at his office to report problems and that he had approached the deputy municipal commissioner, additional engineers and local MLA Kaushik Jain. According to Chouhan, the officials had not acted on the complaints, leaving him with no option but to lock the office.
The municipal administration disputed the corporator’s account. Deputy Municipal Commissioner Ramyakumar Bhatt, who is responsible for the central zone, said that all small and large works proposed from the municipal budget or corporator’s budget had been taken up. Bhatt said Chouhan had proposed 32 works, of which 28 had been completed. Of the remaining four, two had also been completed, he said, while questioning the reason for the office lockout.
The confrontation has put the municipal administration and the ruling BJP organisation under pressure because the protest came from within the party that controls the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation. The report said similar incidents involving municipal offices or muster stations had also been reported in Paldi and Asarwa, although those claims were attributed to municipal sources and were not independently detailed in the supplied report.
BJP municipal party leader Jashubhai Thakor said Chouhan and three other corporators had been called to the city BJP office. The meeting was attended by city BJP president Prerak Shah and general secretary Umang Nayak, who heard the corporators’ representations and obtained details from municipal officials.
Thakor said the matter would be discussed at the party’s internal coordination meeting, after which a decision would be taken. The next formal step in the dispute is therefore expected to come through the party’s internal review of the corporator’s conduct and the municipal administration’s record on the works cited by him.
