Govt eviction notice to Cong for HQ, other offices in Delhi

The Union urban development ministry, after getting seasoned politicos like Lalu Prasad Yadav and Ajit Singh to vacate their bungalows on losing their MP status, has issued the Congress party a notice to vacate its 24, Akbar Road, headquarters, a government-owned bungalow.

The government also wants the adjoining Congress Seva Dal office and that of the Youth Congress office on Raisina Road vacated. The party said it had got the notice and replied to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government that as its new premises were still was under construction in the land allotted to it on Deendayal Upadhyay Marg, it should be permitted to continue to operate from its present headquarters.

The notice, issued last month, states the Congress had been issued a plot on 9A, DDU Marg (earlier Rouse Avenue) and had even taken possession of it in 2010 (during the Congress government era). In view of that, the four bungalows given to the party — the three mentioned earlier and one more, in the locality of Chanakyapuri — had to be vacated.

A senior Congressman, who did not want to be named, said: “This is political vendetta and a desperate bid by the government to divert attention from their own failures.” He, however, admitted only a foundation stone was laid on the Rouse Avenue plot and no construction had started at the site.