Patna Municipal Corporation's apathy has not spared former BJP state chief Mangal Pandey either.

A clogged and damaged drain outside his official residence on Polo Road is lying unattended for over a year despite MLC Pandey personally calling up the corporation officials and urban development and housing department minister Maheshwar Hazari.

The garbage dumped into the drain is such that one can hardly see water flowing in the drain outside his house. The result? Sewage water unable to drain out collects inside his campus, giving off a foul smell. The unhygienic surrounding forced him out of the premises. He now lives in his Kankerbagh-based home but carries out his office work from the official residence, thus staying almost the entire day there.

"Had it been any ruling party MLA's house, the problem would have been sorted out long ago," Pandey said. "When this is the situation at a place just 1km from the governor and chief minister's houses, one can imagine the situation in the entire state." He added that people from the slum (right in front of his house) defecate and urinate in the drain, adding to the squalor.

"I called up the executive officer of the corporation's New Capital circle a dozen times and urban development and housing minister Maheshwar Hazariji at least four times," Pandey said.

"The last time I called up Hazariji, I was so annoyed I told him he had no control on his department officials and they were not taking his orders due to which the work was not getting done."

Few slum residents complained that the municipal corporation was not de-silting the drain regularly and that was leading to the unhygienic surroundings. "What if our children contract diseases because of the choked drains," asked Phulwati Devi (53), a resident. "The municipal corporation should construct public toilets in the area. People are forced to defecate near the drain in the absence of toilets."

Repeated attempts to contact Patna Municipal Commissioner Abhishek Singh and urban development and housing minister Hazari proved futile.

But executive officer of the PMC's New Capital circle, Vishal Anand, admitted Pandey had contacted him in the matter. "There is a need to construct a new drain in the area," Anand said. "We tried to, but work was abandoned midway because it would have affected roads in the area. We could not find any alternative either. We have tried to get the drain cleaned a few times, but it still gets chocked because slum dwellers don't cooperate and keep throwing their garbage into the drain. They keep defecating there though we have asked them not to do so."

When this correspondent pointed out that the drain was damaged and choked, Anand said he would try and get it cleaned soon. "The corporation is going to get the work done through some agency. Selection of agency would be done on tender basis. But all this will take time," Anand said.

Asked why the drain was not built, a senior PMC official, speaking on condition of anonymity, had a bizarre take. "It is an individual problem. Tell us about a problem that involves common people. That would be given priority. A politician is an elite. We are trying to focus on the common man as of now," he said.