Lutyens homes for Telangana, AP CMs
The Urban Development ministry is still looking for a suitable place for N Chandrababu Naidu.
The Union government has decided to allot a bungalow each in Lutyens Delhi to the heads of two rival political parties — Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS). While the Urban Development ministry has already allotted a Type VIII bungalow to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhara Rao, it is still looking for a suitable place for N Chandrababu Naidu.
After six years of overstaying in a government accommodation, Congress leader Jagdish Tytler, who ceased to be a member of Parliament in 2009 vacated the house Thursday. Tytler, who was given a clean chit by CBI in one of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases, was allotted the house on Gurudwara Rakabganj Road on the basis of his security status. Last month, the home ministry downgraded his security from Z plus to Z category.
Since there is no rule under which a chief minister can occupy a government property in Delhi, toeing the line followed by its predecessor UPA, the NDA government will allot it from the state quota, a pool reserved for state government officials working in Delhi. The UPA government had also used the same method to allot houses to its chief minister in Haryana Virbhadra Singh and the then Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan. While Chavan vacated the house, Singh is still occupying the 1, Jantar Mantar Road bungalow. The other chief minister who has been allotted a bungalow in Delhi is Uttarakhand’s Harish Rawat who got it on health grounds by the NDA government last November.
Rao has been allowed to retain the 23, Tughlaq Road bungalow where he has been staying since he was appointed as a cabinet minister for labour and employment in 2004 during UPA-I. Despite several notices, Rao did not vacate the house and recently the UD ministry on request of the state government allotted the house to him from state quota.
“The house hunt for Naidu is still on and we are looking for an appropriate place for him. “There is no provision for chief ministers of other states to occupy any house here in Delhi. It can be done only if they have a special permission or the Cabinet Committee on Accommodation (CCA) clears the allotment. Owing to the paucity of place, we allot it from the state government’s quota. Every state has an earmarked pool of six houses in Lutyens’ Delhi — four big houses and two small ones meant for state government employees,” said a senior UD ministry official.
Meanwhile, HRD minister Smriti Irani withdrew her application to shift her house from Tughlaq Crescent to Motilal Nehru Marg.
Source:: Indian Express
