BHYANDER: For nearly 15 years, Asgar Ali Vora went from one Maharashtra government office to another, seeking action on a Bhayander land he says was taken over by a construction firm. Nothing moved. Then, on September 8, the 81-year-old met an old schoolmate — and within a week, the entire dispute was settled in a single meeting.The turning point came when Vora met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his classmate from B N School in Vadnagar, Gujarat, and raised the long-pending land dispute with him, seeking his intervention.Vora had purchased around 2,810 sqm of land at Navghar in Bhayander East in 1989. In 2011, he said, the plot was taken over by Swayam Builders and Seven Eleven Constructions, a firm owned by BJP MLA Narendra Mehta. For nearly 15 years, Vora pursued the matter with various government authorities, without resolution. TOI had first reported on Vora’s complaint and his meeting with the PM on September 13.What followed was swift. Days after the meeting, government authorities took up the matter, and on Tuesday, a meeting was convened at Mantralaya by Shrikar Pardeshi, principal secretary to the chief minister. In attendance were Vora, Mehta, Mira-Bhayander municipal commissioner Radha Binod Sharma, and town planner Purushottam Shinde — all in one room, all at once.The outcome of that single sitting: Mehta submitted a letter to the town planning department stating that he was giving up possession of the disputed land and surrendering the construction permission granted to him. In the letter, Mehta said the land had been purchased from one Mervyn Fernandes in 2019. In a separate letter to the police commissioner, the MLA said he was withdrawing his earlier complaint against Vora, stating that the two sides had reached a settlement.Fifteen years of pursuing the case through official channels had led nowhere. One meeting — convened only after a chance reunion with a schoolmate who now happens to be the Prime Minister — resolved it entirely.
