Lutyens Delhi: 315 new MPs lead to major housing exercise as ex-ministers refuse to vacate homes

The big switch in power equations in the Indian capital after the BJP’s landslide victory is causing a huge churn in Lutyens Delhi, where those in office for over a decade are suddenly losing their mojo, and with it, their Lutyens homes, government cars and entitlements that came with their positions.

After an evening soiree at a 5-star hotel in Delhi last week, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia was found waiting at the porch unable to find his car—he was heard telling a friend he had given up his official car and is yet to get used to his private vehicle.

Former law and external affairs minister Salman Khurshid has moved out of his leafy Kushak Road bungalow to his modest ancestral house in Jamia Nagar in South Delhi—lock, stock and his 100-odd pets that include rabbits, hamsters, cows, cats, dogs, macaws and fantails. AK Antony, his colleague in the defense ministry, has been quick to vacate his house. Former minister Kapil Sibal is looking for a privateowned Lutyens bungalow on rent. “I am looking for an appropriate place, but it is difficult to find one in a hurry. I want to shift out as soon as possible,” he told ET.

Even the old guard in BJP hasn’t been spared and former finance, defense and external affairs minister Jaswant Singh, who contested as an independent candidate and lost, has been asked to vacate his Teen Murti Lane bungalow.

By letting it be known that only ministers will be entitled to Lutyens bungalows; all others will get an MP quarter, the Narendra Modi government has already set the cat among the pigeons. Several top politicians are cosying up to senior BJP leaders requesting them leniency in the eviction policy.

“Nearly a third of the 260 members of the previous Lok Sabha, who lost the elections, have sought extensions on grounds of health or their children’s schooling, but the pleas of many are likely to fall on deaf years, especially with 315 new members of the house moving in,” a top government official said, asking not to be named. A new House Committee will consider all requests for extensions and allotments next week.

Says BJP MP Kirit Somaiya, who is chairperson of the House Committee, “We will stick to the Parliament guidelines on allotment of houses. In case of genuine cases, and basis humtanitarian grounds and seniority of members, we can make exceptions. But exceptions cannot be a rule.”

Politicians who occupy government accommodations have never been forcibly evicted. The ministry of urban development sends them notices, and if don’t vacate, claim market rent and indulge in exchange of letters for months.

In the past, ministers have put up in luxurious five-star hotels until they didn’t get a Lutyens bungalow. But MPs in the Modi government, and the PM himself, have made a departure by staying in various state guest houses (bhavans) and government-owned hotels.

Ministry sources said some 180 rooms were booked at the Samrat, Janpath and Ashoka hotels in Delhi, during last week’s Parliament session. “This cost us close to Rs 1.2 crore for the four days,” the official said. “But we have also been told that hotel accommodations during transit should be arranged only when state guest houses are not available,” one official in the urban development ministry said.

Members of Parliament, as per government regulations, are entitled to Type IV and V houses. A typical Type IV house has four bedrooms and a study.

The higher category, allotted to secondtime MPs and ministers, are fewer in number. Cabinet ministers enjoy Type VIII bungalows in the Lutyens zone, which come with large lawns. The front lawn of former petroleum minister Jaipal Reddy’s home is large enough to accommodate five badminton courts.

Currently, there are over a 1,000 bungalows in the British-built LBZ, of which 65 are privately-owned. The remaining bungalows are owned by the government, and are allotted to the country’s top politicians, bureaucrats, judges and officers of the armed forces.

While the value of the private portion of LBZ—around 254.5 acres, where industrialists Sunil Mittal, KP Singh, Naveen Jindal and LN Mittal, among others have homes—has gone up from around Rs 6,100 crore to Rs 49,000 crore in the past ten years, the value of the 995 acres occupied by government bungalows has grown from Rs 24,000 crore to Rs 192,000 crore, albeit notionally, based on current market rates derived from recent transactions in the area. If all these bungalows were sold, India could easily wipe off a third of its fiscal deficit, which widened to Rs 5,99,299 crore in April-February 2014.

Journalist and author Tavleen Singh, who has written about the stranglehold of political powers on the Lutyens bungalows, says that MPs who come to Delhi to attend Parliament sessions should be accommodated at government hotels during the days they are here. “Why can’t the MPs get to stay in Ashoka hotel or any other state-owned hotel. A good idea will be to move all ministers to the President’s Estate, which is spread over 600 acres, and ask the PM to move back to Teen Murti Bhavan and vacate Race Course Road. Security will be so much easier,” she adds.

It is their heritage value, and the prestige of staying alongside the who’s who of Delhi—politicians, industrialists and officers— that keep these bungalows in huge demand. There are rules to govern when a politician should leave an official bungalow. Supreme Court directive dated July 5, 2013, said such accommodation is to be vacated within a month of ceasing to be minister, failing which the “matter should be intimated to the Speaker/Chairman of the House and action should be initiated by the House committee for breach of privilege.”

Last year, former Bihar Governor Buta Singh was asked to pay market rent for his bungalow. That would have been Rs 1 lakh a month. However, Singh asked the PMO to revise his rent as he couldn’t manage that with his monthly pension of Rs 60,000. The government obliged, but the final rent was not disclosed. As per an RTI information, 22 former ministers have not vacated their houses.

These include A Raja (2-A, Motilal Nehru Marg), Mukul Roy, SM Krishna, CP Joshi, Dayanidhi Maran, Mukul Wasnik (who occupied 36 Aurangzeb Road), Agatha Sangma, Sudip Bandopadhyaya, Sultan Ahmed, Saugata Roy and Sisir Adhikari.

Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi, former chairman of UIDAI Nandan Nilekani, Rajya Sabha MP Murli Deora and RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav have already been granted an extension till October 2014.

AAP chief and former Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal has got four notices, but has not responded with a firm date of vacating the plush C-II/23 Tilak Lane accommodation. Another AAP leader Manish Sisodia, who lives in a government accommodation at Patparganj across the Yamuna, has repeatedly ignored eviction notices.

“The call on extension has to be taken quickly considering the fact that the CPWD will have to be given time to ready the houses for occ upation by new MPs. So far, about 17 flats and 8 bungalows have been vacated by MPs,” he said.

Former ministers have been given time till June 26 by the Urban Development ministry to vacate their bungalows and has said that this time only ministers will be allotted Lutyens bungalows.