Bhayander: For 15 years, Asgar Ali Vora walked the corridors of Maharashtra government offices seeking justice over a land dispute in Bhayander. Nothing moved. Then, one chance meeting with an old school friend changed everything.
Vora, 81, a pensioner from Mira Road, purchased approximately 2,810 square metres of land at Navghar in Bhayander East in 1989. In 2011, he says, Swayam Builders and Seven Eleven Constructions, a firm owned by BJP MLA Narendra Mehta, took over the plot. For nearly 15 years, Vora pursued the matter with various government authorities, without resolution.
The turning point came on September 8, when Vora met Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The two had studied together at B N School in Vadnagar, Gujarat. Vora raised the long-pending land dispute with the Prime Minister directly and sought his intervention.
What followed was swift. Days after the meeting, government authorities took up the matter. A meeting was convened at Mantralaya by Shrikar Pardeshi, principal secretary to the chief minister. Vora, Mehta, Mira-Bhayander municipal commissioner Radha Binod Sharma, and town planner Purushottam Shinde all sat together in one room.
The outcome was decisive. 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 stated the land had been purchased from one Mervyn Fernandes in 2019. In a separate letter to the police commissioner, the MLA withdrew his earlier complaint against Vora, confirming that both 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 is now the Prime Minister, resolved the dispute entirely in a single sitting.
