People’s representatives must behave with restraint and work within the framework of law, Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Devendra Fadnavis said on Wednesday after a BJP MLA from Thane district slapped a junior civil engineer working for the Mira-Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC).
On Tuesday, Geeta Jain, a first-time BJP legislator from the Mira-Bhayander constituency, had assaulted a junior engineer working on a contractual basis with the MBMC over an issue of allegedly razing an “illegal structure”.
In a minute-long video which went viral on social media, Ms. Jain is seen scolding two engineers. She is then seen grabbing the shirt collar of one of them and slapping him for razing some structures that reportedly caused the occupants, including children, to stay on the roads.
“Public representatives must behave with restraint and act within legal limits…while it is possible that one may get angry over some issue. But it is only proper that people’s representatives exercise restraint,” Mr. Fadnavis said, speaking in Pune regarding the incident.
The incident took place in the Penkarpada area of the Mira-Bhayander, where the MBMC’s anti-encroachment squad was carrying out a demolition drive ahead of monsoon.
Explaining her action, Ms. Jain, a former Mayor of the Mira-Bhayander civic body, said she had hit the engineer after the latter had allegedly laughed at the plight of a woman whose home had been razed.
The BJP legislator questioned how engineers could indiscriminately demolish structures and pointed out that a Government Resolution (GR) prohibited the razing of residential structures prior to or during the monsoon season.
“I asked the engineers why they demolished the house ahead of the monsoon season as it belonged to a woman who lived with her children. When I told them if they realized that their actions would force the family to stay on the road during the rainy season, they laughed. I could not tolerate this insult of a woman,” Ms. Jain said, adding that she did not regret her actions.
The BJP leader further claimed that the allegedly illegal construction was an obstacle for a builder and not to any government amenity or road and that instead of demolishing only the illegal portion, the engineers had razed the entire house.
A three-term corporator of the MBMC, Ms. Jain, a former BJP Mayor, won the 2019 Maharashtra Assembly election as an Independent, following which she extended support to the Uddhav Thackeray-led Shiv Sena.
She even briefly joined the Shiv Sena but quit following the internal tussle within the party and re-joined the BJP in 2022.
