In 1955, the city council elections were held in Karaj. Given the population at the time, five members were to be elected to the council. That year, my father also ran as a candidate. Some of the city’s elders, who had been in the council for years and considered it their own, were not keen on new members entering, presenting us with a tough battle. There were a total of twenty-one candidates, divided into groups, with the government supporting a specific faction. This led to many of our votes not being counted, and some of our supporters were even prevented from entering the polling place. As a result, three from our group lost, and two won, while the opposite group had three winners and two losers; other groups did not win any seats. My father was among the three who did not win due to these obstructions.
I collected extensive evidence, hired a lawyer, and filed a complaint against the election results through the judiciary and the Ministry of Interior, bringing several people to Tehran to provide testimony. At that time, the city council term was two years, and for over a year, I pursued the complaint. Eventually, I managed to obtain a decree to dissolve that council. After this incident, our opponents acknowledged our legitimacy and social power, and the Ministry of Interior ordered a new election. By then, Karaj’s population had increased, requiring a seven-member city council. In the subsequent elections, our opponents did not resist, and we won the majority of votes, resulting in my father being elected. I also participated in various municipal commissions as they needed representatives, which allowed me to be actively involved in many of them.
At that time, there was no modernization levy, and people were not paying other dues, leaving the municipality in a financial bind, unable to pay even its employees’ salaries, let alone undertake construction projects. Karaj also lacked piped water, a problem we aimed to solve. With no budget available, we rallied the city’s notables and pushed for action, ultimately securing a loan from Bank Melli for the municipality to provide 5,000 water connections in Karaj. The project faced many challenges, such as disagreements with the provincial government on where to start the piping; they wanted to begin in Azimieh, but we insisted on starting in Dolatabad to serve the more deprived residents. Despite these issues, the project was completed, and residents gradually paid their connection fees, allowing the municipality to settle its debt. Initially, water purification was done chemically in most cities, but with the help of an expert from Tehran, we established physical purification, similar to the old system in Tehran. This infrastructure is still in use, although it cannot meet the entire city’s needs. The water supply project was eventually realized, but not without its continued problems, such as the initially planned five-year timeline being overwhelmed by migration and construction within two years, leading to the allocation of another 5,000 subsidiary connections. We addressed these issues, but they persisted for several years.