A BJP corporator from Ahmedabad’s Shahpur ward locked the office of an assistant city engineer on October 9, alleging that water supply, sewerage and other civic works had remained incomplete for months. Jitendra Chohan also demanded that the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation commissioner resign if the civic body was unable to complete the pending works.
According to a report by Divya Bhaskar, Chohan carried out the lockout at the municipal corporation office near the Dudheswar water tank. He said residents of the ward, which falls within Ahmedabad’s walled-city area, had repeatedly complained about water and sewerage problems, but claimed that officials had failed to act despite representations.
Chohan said Shahpur was a labour-dominated area where groups of residents regularly approached his office with civic complaints. He alleged that project works had been pending for six to eight months and that works proposed under corporators’ budgets had also not been completed.
“Shahpur ward is a labour area and there are many complaints about sewerage and water,” Chohan was quoted as saying. He said residents approached elected representatives because the problems continued, while officials had not completed the works despite repeated requests.
The corporator said he had raised the issue with the local MLA, Kaushik Jain of Dariyapur, but alleged that officials had not acted on the matter. He added that he had not yet approached the mayor or the standing committee chairman separately, although he claimed to have raised the issue during committee meetings.
Chohan said the lockout was intended to draw attention to the delay and warned that another municipal office could also be locked the following day. The report does not include a response from the assistant city engineer, the municipal commissioner or the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation to the allegations or to the action taken at the office.
The dispute has also exposed tensions within the civic administration’s ruling political establishment. Chohan alleged that pending works in the ward showed that even corporator-backed projects were not moving forward despite the Bharatiya Janata Party having controlled the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation for about two decades.
The corporator further alleged that roads, footpaths, water supply and sewerage works in the ward were either incomplete or not being implemented. He called for a vigilance inquiry into alleged irregularities in road and footpath works and questioned how some officials had accumulated their assets. These allegations were made by Chohan and were not independently established in the supplied report.
Shahpur’s residents are therefore facing a dispute that combines immediate service complaints with a larger administrative question: how ward-level works are prioritised, sanctioned and monitored after elected representatives submit them. The report does not specify the number or value of the pending projects, the formal status of the works, or whether the civic body has initiated an inquiry.
The next steps will depend on the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s response to the allegations, the status of the locked office and whether the claimed water, sewerage and project delays are reviewed by senior officials or the vigilance department.
