Meet the greatest land-grabber among all parties, the Congress

NEW DELHI, Jan 2: If anything, it pays to be India's Grand Old Party. The Congress may have lost much of its support base and many of its le...

NEW DELHI, Jan 2: If anything, it pays to be India’s Grand Old Party. The Congress may have lost much of its support base and many of its leaders to rival parties, but not the prime real estate it has occupied in the Capital.

The Congress has occupied as many as 15 bungalows in the heart of Delhi, it is not paying for them and as per the estimates of the Directorate of Estates, the party owes Rs 3 crore in rent. To get a more clear picture, put the Congress’ share against that of other parties: Congress has 15 as against the 22 of 13 other political parties.

“We keep sending notices and reminders to them to vacate the premises and pay the dues but we seldom get even a cursory reply from them,” says an official in the Urban Development ministry.

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5, Raisina Road — housing the National Youth Congress office — which was allotted to All India Congress Committee (AICC) on July 5, 1976 “as a purely temporary measure,” is a case in point.

On July 25, 1995, the then Director of Estates, Harcharanjit Singh, sent a letter to the AICC general secretary, reminding him of the status of the house. He also wrote that the Congress had to pay a sum of Rs 14,29,107, dues accumulated for period ending April 30, 1995.

“Due to non-payment of outstanding dues, the allotment of the bungalow could not be regularised in the name of AICC (I). It is understood that National Youth Congress has since made their headquarters in the abovesaid bungalow without any formal allotment/regularisation made in their favour,” the letter said.

The Director of Estates requested the Congress party to vacate the bungalow and clear the dues at the earliest. “Since the bungalow is required to be vacated for construction of Telephone Exchange building within the premises,” the letter added.

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However, sources said that far from vacating the bungalow or clearing their dues, the AICC did not even bother to send a reply to the letter.

As per the rules of the Urban Development ministry, a recognised national party can only be allotted six premises to run their offices. However, the Congress, which ruled the country for more than four decades, managed to snatch nearly two dozen houses, most of them sprawling residential buildings in the Lutyen’s Bungalow Zone (LBZ). Most of them allotted in the name of the AICC were being used to house various offices of the party.

However, they had to vacate some of them following a Supreme Court order in December 1996.

AICC joint secretary Major Ved Prakash denied that the Congress was occupying 15 houses. “There are only about six houses with the Congress,” he said. “They must have included the small quarters allotted to employees of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP). Officially, the AICC is only occupying 24 and 26, Akbar Road. Most others are occupied by the CPP.”

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About the reminders from the ministry, he said, “as far as I know the Congress has not occupied more houses than what it can, and if we do get some sort of communication from the ministry, we do respond.” However, ministry officials insisted that the party never cared to reply.

Ministry officials feel that the lack of a clear-cut policy on the issue is being exploited by the political parties.