Call it the arrogance spawning from the ruling party enjoying brute majority in the state. In two incidents that may look more like in Uttar Pradesh than Gujarat, a local Rajkot BJP leader slapped a woman corporator multiple times and kicked her in the stomach, compelling her to get hospitalalised. Elsewhere in Ahmedabad, a group of the BJP's student wing toughies stormed the Gujarat University building and thrashed a clerk.

It was on Thursday afternoon that former Rajkot BJP general secretary and also a municipal corporator Anil Rathod had an argument with woman councilor Jayshree Dodia, who belongs to the dissident camp in the party in the Rajkot Municipal Corporation.

Dodia was admitted to the government hospital late evening and subsequently a police complaint was lodged about the incident. "Me and Anil Rathod are corporators from the same (municipal) ward and he had for long been trying to browbeat me, expecting that I do everything as he wanted.

He also created a faction leader image of me. I couldn't take it any longer. So, when he provoked, I shouted back," Dodia said. "He then lost his cool and beat me up severely," she added. When other party members rushed in to stop him, "he threatened me that he will finish my entire family."

Rathod admitted to the act by saying, "I had gone to the party office (in the municipal corporation) for some work where Jayshree was also present. Without a cause, she said 'we dissidents would make it difficult for you and the party'. I could not tolerate her speaking nonsense against the party and so this happened." However, he denied that he had threatened the woman to finish her and her family.

In another incident, a group of volunteers from the BJP's student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, stormed into the Gujarat University building in Ahmedabad. One of them went to the accounts section and told incharge cashier Rajesh Patel that the boss had summoned him.

As he came out, the ABVP toughies heckled and abused him. They slapped him separately, alleging that Patel used to tease female students and Vice-Chancellor M.N. Patel did not listen to their complaints regarding it. Even on Wednesday, the ABVP toughies had an argument with the university Registrar demanding his resignation.

But things came to a head-on late Thursday afternoon after the cashier was beaten up. The entire university administrative staff sat on a dharna outside the V-C's office and went on a flash strike that continued on Friday.