A BJP corporator in Ahmedabad’s Shahpur ward locked the office of an assistant city engineer after alleging that water, drainage and other civic works were not being completed, escalating a dispute between elected representatives and the municipal administration.
Jitendrabhai Chauhan reached the municipal office in the Dudheshwar area on Friday morning and locked the assistant city engineer’s office, according to a report by Nav Gujarat Samay. A worker accompanying him also raised slogans against the civic administration. Chauhan reportedly warned that other municipal offices could also be locked if public works continued to remain pending.
The corporator alleged that residents of Shahpur ward were facing several problems related to water supply, drainage and other basic services. He said residents regularly gathered at his office with complaints and that he had approached the deputy municipal commissioner, additional engineers and local MLA Kaushik Jain, but claimed that the issues remained unresolved.
Chauhan also criticised Municipal Commissioner M. Thennarasan, saying that the commissioner should resign if the administration could not address public complaints. The incident placed both the municipal administration and the ruling BJP in a defensive position, particularly because the protest was carried out by a corporator from the ruling party itself.
Deputy Municipal Commissioner Ramyakumar Bhatt disputed the allegation that ward works had been ignored. He said that all small and large works proposed for Shahpur ward through the municipal budget or the corporator’s budget had been completed. According to Bhatt, Chauhan had proposed 32 works, of which 28 had been completed. Of the remaining four, two had also been completed, he said.
The official did not explain why the corporator had locked the office despite the administration’s account of progress. The competing claims have made the status of the remaining works and the reasons for the dispute central to the controversy.
The episode also prompted a response from the BJP’s municipal leadership. Municipal party leader Jashubhai Thakor said Chauhan and three other corporators had been called to the city BJP office. The meeting was attended by city president Prerak Shah and general secretary Umang Nayak, and the corporators were heard, according to Thakor.
Thakor said the party had also obtained details from the municipal official and that the matter would be discussed at an internal coordination meeting before any decision was taken. Under the party’s municipal structure, its leader can seek an explanation and issue a notice when a corporator is accused of indiscipline or misconduct.
The report also referred to claims of similar office-locking incidents involving corporators or their relatives in Paldi and Asarwa, although further details were not provided. The Shahpur episode therefore raises questions about how ward-level complaints are tracked, how elected representatives are informed about work completion, and how disagreements between corporators and municipal officials are resolved without disrupting public administration. The BJP’s internal coordination meeting is expected to determine the next step in the matter.
