Ahmedabad Muncipal Corporation offices hit by people’s wrath

When municipal commissioner IP Gautam had commented that incidence of rising attacks on Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) offices was due to the upcoming civic polls, he was quickly accused by the opposition of being a BJP spokesperson.

Perhaps some would argue that the civic infrastructure failure is what has led to these attacks. Whatever be the reason, there is no denying that in the last one month, the offices of the civic body have been at the receiving end of violence.

Tuesday saw another such attack after residents of Rakhial ward ransacked the East Zone's Viratnagar office. The residents were angry after officials failed to respond to their complaints of waterlogging in the area.

In the last one month, all zonal offices except the central zone have faced public wrath and violence resulting in damage worth more than Rs2 lakh. At some places, sources said political parties are cashing in on citizens anger to use it against the ruling party BJP in the AMC.

In the earlier attacks, the Usmanpura office registered a loss of around Rs75,000 while the Vejalpur ward office that was ransacked by citizens registered loss of Rs65,000.

Congress members, meanwhile, claim that the rise in attack has nothing to do with politics but people's discontent with poor civic amenities.

The Congress has been demonstrating and protesting against the AMC's failure of Rs350 crore stormwater drainage line which they say has not generated the desired result.  "The tax payers have no other option when the promised amenities are not delivered and their civic problems are ignored by the civic body officials," said a Congress member.

Municipal commissioner IP Gautam refused to comment on the politics behind the attack but appealed to the citizens and said that damaging corporation's property was not the way to express their unhappiness with civic officials.