A farmer swallowed pesticide at a public meeting held by Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani in a village on Sunday, police said.

Mashribhai Dodiya was rushed to hospital, where doctors have declared him stable, officers said.

Dodiya was allegedly upset with local authorities for failing to remove an encroachment on a plot of panchayat land that blocked the entrance to his farm in Dolasa village, Gir Somnath district, 400km from here.

“The collector had already ordered the encroachment removed but the local authorities have not acted,” district police chief Rahul Tripathi said.

Dodiya drank pesticide as soon as Rupani began addressing the meeting at Pransli village, Gir Somnath, where he had earlier inaugurated a marketing yard, Tripathi said.

Dodiya told reporters from his hospital bed that the encroachment, which he claimed was the handiwork of the land mafia, had made it difficult for him to enter his own farmland.

“I had approached the chief minister, who had ordered the encroachment removed, but nothing has happened so far,” he said.

“I made repeated appeals to the village panchayat officials and the taluka development officer, but in vain. Fed up, I decided to end my life.”