The incident took place after a Vadodara Municipal Corporation team reached Bapod Lake area to remove unauthorised hutments on Gauchar land
Squatters in Vadodara tied Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) councillor Hasmukh Patel to a tree in Bapod area on Tuesday morning and thrashed him.
The incident took place after a Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) team reached Bapod Lake area to remove unauthorised hutments on Gauchar land. But when some women residing in the structures protested, the VMC staff allegedly hurled abuses at them, which enraged the people in the locality.
They chased the VMC team and caught Patel and manhandled him.
Patel represents Bapod (Ward number 5).
Some 114 families living in the shanties on Gauchar land for years had been evacuated from the area in May and were rehabilitated in the urban development authority's affordable housing scheme, even as the VMC removed the encroachments. But the people complained that electricity and water supply were erratic and returned to restore their illegal structures.
On Tuesday, the VMC staff arrived at the spot with local councillors to drive them out again.
Councillor Patel said, "I did not utter any abusive word. Some other people did and they ran away. I could not run because I am old. The mob caught me and beat me up badly."
The councillor continued, "They asked me to call the municipal commissioner to solve their issue of poor-quality houses, but before I could take my phone out, they started slapping me."
"There are several people who are trying to instigate these poor people. To an extent, people are also disgruntled with the ruling party's management of civic affairs. These factors are responsible for the incident. So I am not going to file a complaint against anyone," he said.
The families occupying the land are from a tribal community and have been settled in the city for more than 10 years. They seek employment here.
Patel's name was dragged in another controversy on Independence Day when a video that went viral purportedly showed him tossing replicas of the national flag out of his car.
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