Just as in 7 Race Course Road, Atal Behari Vajpayee will not have any immediate neighbours at his new residence. On one side of his new 8 Krishna Menon Road bungalow is the Babu Jagjivan Ram memorial and on the other is a road. There are no landscaped gardens here and no barricades yet. A fading board outside the gate has ‘8’ written in red. But the buzz is there. The SPG officials deployed outside the gates are mum. But the New Delhi Municipal Council gardeners, working outside the bungalow, and the CPWD officials zipping in and out of it are excited. Outside the gates, there are inspired attempts to remove the heaps of dry leaves piled along the boundary wall. Gardeners have been employed to trim the hedge and remove the wild growth. Hardev Prasad, an NDMC gardener, who was told this morning to start cleaning, said: ‘‘The hedge hasn’t been trimmed for a long time and even the grass needs to be cut.’’ Swaraj Singh, an NDMC supervisor, said: ‘‘We have not been inside the kothi. That is not our job. We have just been told to clean up the outside and we are doing it.’’ The bungalow, which has been vacant since the death of former Union minister Murasoli Maran, has six bedrooms, a drawing room, a dining hall and five toilets. It also has staff quarters. Inside the bungalow, a battery of CPWD officials are at work. The CPWD took charge of the bungalow early Saturday morning. CPWD’S S.K. Srivastava, in charge of the area, who sits in his office right behind the bungalow, said: ‘‘The bungalow has been allotted to Vajpayeeji and will be done up in the next 20 days. It is in good shape and only requires painting and perhaps a change of carpets.’’ Busy removing old furniture from the bungalow and loading it in a truck, the labourers are sure deadline will be kept. Srivastava said: ‘‘We will do up the interiors as well. So far no special interior decorators have been hired.’’ Behind Srivastava’s office, the backlawns of the bungalow are being dug up. A wooden fence fixed over the walls in parts has its paint peeling off. On the right side of Vajpayee’s new address is an NDMC public toilet in green tiles. ‘‘We have no instructions to remove it so far. When we get the orders, we will remove it,’’ said its PRO Madan Thapliyal.
