Vadodara, Oct 23 Amid protests by the Congress, the standing committee of the Vadodara civic body in Gujarat on Friday approved a proposal to allot 500 square metres of the land, out of the total 978-square metre, as a “gift” to former cricketer Yusuf Pathan and offering the rest at a concessional rate.
The proposal, submitted by the Vadodara municipal commissioner, was presented for final approval before the BJP-ruled civic body’s standing committee.
After Pathan was elected to the Lok Sabha on a TMC ticket in 2024, the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) had issued him a notice, asking him to remove the alleged encroachment and vacate the civic body-owned land. However, Pathan later joined the rebel TMC group.
VMC’s standing committee chairman Varsha Vyas informed the media that the government resolution was approved by the civic body’s standing committee, days after the state decided to “gift” 500-square metre plot to Pathan for free, and provide the remaining 478-square-metre plot at concessional rate (55 per cent of the value).
She said the standing committee approved the notification issued by the Gujarat government in this regard.
Pathan had been seeking the 978-square-metre residential plot located next to his family home in Vadodara’s Tandalja locality since 2012, but faced years of legal hurdles and encroachment notices from the civic body.
As per the new proposal, 500 square metres of the VMC-owned land will be gifted to Pathan, while the remaining 478 square metres will be offered at a 45 per cent concession — valued at 55 per cent of the rate fixed by the Vadodara Urban Development Authority (VUDA) Valuation Committee.
The proposal will now be put forward before the general board of VMC next month.
The Congress party staged a protest against the decision, with members carrying posters that read “Vote-Thief BJP, Plot-Thief BJP” and “The Price of One Vote: Rs 15 Crore,” and raised slogans like, “Yusuf Pathan: The VMC’s Son-in-law” and “Where will Yusuf Pathan be found? In the BJP’s office”.
Congress members organised a sit-in outside the meeting hall, raising slogans, with the party’s city president Rutvij Joshi claiming that BJP leaders handed over a 978-square-meter government-owned plot to Yusuf Pathan as if he was a some sort of “favored son-in-law” of the government.
“For any activity conducted by a citizen of Vadodara on government plots, a rent of Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 is charged. Yusuf Pathan held possession of this land for 14 years. If you calculate the dues for those 14 years, the amount to be recovered from Yusuf Pathan would exceed Rs 8 crore, but it was given away for free — a plot worth Rs 15 crore was handed over at no cost,” he said.
The plot has been at the centre of a decade-long dispute between the cricketer-turned-politician and the civic body. In 2012, Pathan had requested to purchase the land adjacent to his home. Though the VMC initially agreed, the state government rejected the sale in 2014.
In 2024, after Pathan was elected to the Lok Sabha from Baharampur in West Bengal on a TMC ticket, the civic body issued him a notice asking him to remove the alleged encroachment and vacate the VMC-owned land.
Pathan challenged the notice before the Gujarat High Court, arguing that the matter was more than a decade old and that the civic body should have issued a show-cause notice before asking him to clear the alleged encroachment.
He also contended that the land belonged to the municipal corporation and not the state government.
The high court subsequently upheld the state government’s decision to reject his request for plot allotment. Pathan challenged the order before a division bench, but in August this year, the appeal was dismissed as withdrawn after his lawyer told the court that he was pursuing his claim under the state government’s policy.
The latest proposal, if approved by the general board of the VMC, would pave the way for the allotment of the disputed plot under the terms outlined by the municipal commissioner.
(PTI News)
