Morbi tragedy: No action, how a municipality, govt are bridging over troubled waters

The resolution passed by the municipality’s general body said it could not respond to the notice till it got the records and documents that had been seized by an SIT, and that the government should not take any action till then. However, it is inconceivable that the municipality does not have copies of those records.

Before the municipality’s response to the January 18 notice by the government, hectic parleys were held at a coordination meeting held at the office of Lakhabhai Jariya, the president of the BJP’s Morbi town unit, and attended by newly elected BJP Morbi MLA Kantilal Amrutiya and around 18 councillors of the municipality.

The Bhupendra Patel-led BJP government going slow in the Morbi case is in sharp contrast to its action when it came to the dissolution of general boards of the Gondal taluka panchayat in Rajkot district, Bhanvad municipality in Devbhumi Dwarka, and Wankaner municipality in Morbi itself in recent years.

The 2016 dissolution of the Congress-controlled Gondal taluka panchayat followed the defection of some Congress members to the BJP, with the general board failing to pass the budget as a result. In Bhanvad similarly, in 2021, with the help of the Congress, BJP rebels managed to pass no-confidence motions against the municipality’s president and vice-president.

Instead of ordering a meeting of the general board to elect new presidents and vice-president, the government handed over charge of president to one of the BJP councillors, before eventually dissoling the municipality four months later.

In Wankaner, BJP rebels captured power by defeating the party’s official candidates in election to the posts of president and vice-president in March 2021, but after continued friction with it, the state government dissolved its general board in August 2022.

In the Morbi civic body in contrast, the BJP has full control, having won all its 52 seats in 2022. Led by president Kusum Parmar, it is the only civic body in Morbi district ruled by the BJP that does not have Patidar councillors. Hence, any crackdown against the municipality will come at a price for the party.

The collapse of the Morbi bridge, owned by the municipality but managed and maintained by Ajanta Manufacturing Private Limited of OREVA Group, had happened days ahead of the Assembly elections in Gujarat. In the immediate aftermath, the then chief officer (CO) of the Morbi municipality, Sandipsin Zala, had blamed the OREVA Group for the lack of a safety audit of the bridge, saying it had not informed the civic body that it was throwing it open on October 26, after a long shutdown for repairs.

On November 24, hearing a PIL on the matter, the Gujarat High Court held that the Morbi municipality seemed to be at fault and asked the government why it was not superseding the body.

On December 15, around 45 councillors of the municipality held a meeting at the office of BJP Morbi MLA Amrutiya, claiming innocence and saying they were not a party to the memorandum of understanding signed with OREVA Group for operations and maintenance of the bridge. They claimed they had neither signed the MoU personally nor had the CO referred it to the general board they are members of.

On December 19, the councillors met Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel requesting him to not supersede the municipality and allow them to complete their five-year tenure. The CM reportedly said he was aware of the issue, adding “saru thai jashe (good things will happen)”.

The decision to send the notice to the municipality on January 18 suddenly, seemed to be the government’s ploy to ward off opprobrium at an approaching High Court hearing. While the government gave the municipality time till January 25 to reply, on January 23, the civic body passed the resolution seeking documents.

One of the councillors admitted their anxiety, adding that it was understandable given that 33 of them were first-timers. “They don’t have much experience of governance and therefore are trying all they can to prevent their maiden terms being cut short.”

Jayanti Kavadiya, the vice-president of the Gujarat BJP, denied that the government was dragging its feet, and promised “justice to people at large and victims of the bridge collapse”. “The issue is not whether the general board of a municipality should be superseded or not. The issue is to ensure that people in general and the victims of that incident in particular get justice… I am cent percent sure that the party and the government in coordination with each other will take appropriate decision in this matter,” Kavadiya said.

But, with its candidate from Morbi winning in the Assembly polls, despite the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party attacking it over the bridge collapse, the BJP clearly believes the worst is behind it.

As a councillor puts it: “Didn’t the CM say ‘Saru thai jashe’?”