Rahul Gandhi gets notice to vacate his bungalow in 30 days

“It is just a formality. Once you lose your membership, you have to give up your privileges and perks as an MP. Sending notice for eviction is just a formality,” said a source.

Talking to The Indian Express, a Congress leader said that “although the party is confident that a higher court will stay his conviction, which could reinstate him as an MP, Gandhi would not wait for 30 days to vacate the house”.

In case the occupant is not able to vacate it in 30 days after the notice, they can raise a request to the House Committee and retain it for an additional month by paying the property’s market rate.

In 2019, the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry had amended the Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 2019. The amendments ensured speedy eviction by empowering the estate officers to issue a show cause notice and also seek a reply from unauthorised occupants within three days. The duration for the same was 15 days under the previous law.

In August that year, Patil had ordered around 200 former MPs, who did not vacate their bungalows, to give up the facility within a week and to disconnect their power, water and cooking gas connections within three days.

The same year, the Centre withdrew the Special Protection Group (SPG) security cover given to the Gandhi family and provided them with CRPF Z-plus cover instead. In July 2020, Rahul’s sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was asked to vacate the bungalow allocated to her in the Lutyens bungalow zone. As she was protected by the SPG, Priyanka and her family were allotted the Type 6B bungalow – 35 Lodhi Estate – in 1997.

Gandhi, who won his Lok Sabha election from Kerala’s Wayanad constituency in 2019, lost his membership after he was convicted by a Surat court for his “Modi surname” remarks during an election rally in Karnataka in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.