Now Cong, Trinamool battle over real estate

Saubhadro Chatterji / New Delhi November 04, 2009, 0:34 IST

Real estate in the Lutyen’s Delhi zone has emerged as the latest bone of contention between the Congress and its biggest ally in the second United Progressive Alliance (UPA) — the Trinamool Congress. According to top Trinamool sources, their leader Mamata Banerjee is again angry with the Congress — even before the previous contentious issues could subside — over non-allocation of a preferred bungalow for her party office in the national capital.

Banerjee had zeroed in on bungalow number 14 on Bishamber Dass Marg as the ideal place to house her party office in Delhi. But the House Committee, headed by Congressman J P Aggarwal, ruled out Banerjee’s appeal and allotted the bungalow to a BJP MP. The preferred plot has a type VII bungalow — the second largest of the kind in Lutyen’s Delhi.

“I don’t have any vacant bungalow now which can be given to any Trinamool Congress MP to set up their party office. The bungalow in question was already allotted to a senior Lok Sabha MP even before the Trinamool Congress leadership sent its request.

There was no question of cancelling the previous allocation and giving it to anyone else,” Aggarwal has reportedly said to his close aides. Currently, the bungalow is being renovated and the tenant is expected to occupy it soon.

Banerjee, according to her aides, has vowed not to take any other bungalow for her party office. “It has to either bungalow number 14 on B D Marg or nothing else,” she has said. Banerjee had sought this bungalow because it’s on the other side of her Delhi residence, at MS Building.

“Long before it was allotted to anyone else, our party had informed the House Committee of Parliament that we would like to have it,” Trinamool Congress MP and Minister of State for Urban Development Saugata Roy told Business Standard.