Gujarat polls: Mahendra Patni, daily wager fighting for demolished huts, pays Rs 10,000 election deposit in Re 1 coins

To run for the Gujarat Assembly elections next month, a daily wage worker who had his slum colony demolished in 2019 to make way for a hotel collected Rs 10,000 in Re 1 coins from his supporters and submitted them to the Election Commission. To elect a new 182-member Gujarat Assembly, voting will take place in two stages on December 1 and 5, with counting day set for December 8.

Mahendra Patni, a candidate in the next election for the Gandhinagar North seat who is running as an independent, put up the required security deposit of coins earlier this week.

He said that the people who had to leave their homes when 521 huts in a slum near Mahatma Mandir in Gandhinagar were razed three years earlier had requested him to run for office on their behalf.

Originally from the slum, Patni and her family were forced to relocate twice: once in 2010 when the government built the Dandi Kutir museum dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi not far from the hotel, and again in 2019 when the slum-dwellers were forced to shift to a nearby area so that the hotel can be constructed on the land.

"I am contesting as an independent. I belong to a family of labourers and make my living as a daily wager. There were 521 huts which were razed to make way for a big hotel. Many of them were rendered jobless. We shifted to a nearby area, but have no water or electricity supply," the man told PTI.

He said that, in response to the government's disinterest, the slum dwellers and other local daily wage earners had pooled together Rs 10,000 in Re 1 currency and gave it to him as a security deposit for his participation in the approaching election.

"Before being displaced, we had electricity in our slum. After we were forced to relocate to another area near the hotel, there is no water or electricity and no politician comes to our aid," Patni said. He said the local authorities were forcing them to leave their current place as well.

"When elections are round the corner, some government representatives and politicians visit and give us some assurance which they conveniently forget later. This has been going on since 1990s," the independent candidate said.

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He said he is being supported by the people who want just a few demands fulfilled from the government.

"If the government fulfills our demands, then I have no interest in contesting the election. We want the government to provide us a permanent space to live so we are not have to face another displacement.

"We also demand from the government to address the issue of regular harassment that daily wagers are subject to by civic authorities. They seize carts used for running small business and make poor people shell out Rs 2,500-3,000 to release them. This should stop," he said.

Patni said there should also be a BPL list of slum residents so that those who are taken by contractors for jobs in government offices get a permanent job and a proper salary and middlemen are removed.

(With inputs from PTI)