Rahul Gandhi’s search for new home may end at Sheila Dikshit’s Nizamuddin residence

According to insiders, the current occupants of the property, the three-time CM’s ex-MP son Sandeep Dikshit and his family, are planning to move out and had put out information to this effect which came to the notice of Rahul’s office leading to an inquiry.

Sources said since he had visited the house “several times” earlier as well, Rahul was likely to take it up on rent as Sandeep moves to another property in the neighbourhood.

Rahul was convicted in a defamation case by a Surat court and awarded a two-year sentence leading to his disqualification from the Parliament. This triggered a notice from the Lok Sabha asking him to vacate the 12, Tughlaq Lane residence allotted to him.

Rahul Gandhi handed over his residence to officials in the presence of Sonia Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, in New Delhi on April 22. (Express Photo by Praveen Khanna)

Staying with his mother Sonia Gandhi at her 10, Janpath home since, Rahul, according to sources, was understood to be in favour of moving into the Nizamuddin property which he has “visited several times” to call on the late Delhi CM when she was alive.

On July 8, Gujarat High Court had declined to stay Rahul’s conviction in the criminal defamation case, making several observations including that “the offence committed by the accused falls in the category of moral turpitude” and that the “need of the hour” is to “have purity in politics”.

Gandhi was found guilty of criminal defamation in a complaint filed by Surat West BJP MLA Purnesh Modi who objected to his remarks in Kolar, in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in April 2019, about “thieves with the Modi surname”.