Staring at the prospect of getting evicted from his palatial bungalow in the highly secured Vidramadiya Marg area of Lucknow, Samajwadi Party (SP) patriarch and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has offered to pay rent on market rates.
Yadav has written to state estate officer Yogesh Kumar Shukla seeking two years’ time to vacate his government accommodation at 5 Vikramaditya Marg owing to Z plus security cover, and offering to pay rent on market rates till then.
Earlier his son and former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav had also sought two years’ time from the Yogi Adityanath government to vacate his adjacent bungalow on 4 Vikramaditya Marg claiming he did not own any other house in Lucknow and due to his security detail, he needed a spacious accommodation until he found one.
On May 16, Mulayam had called upon Adityanath seeking relief for himself and Akhilesh. The Yadav senior had suggested that their bungalows be allotted in the name of the leaders of the opposition in the Vidhan Parishad and Vidhan Sabha, which are currently held by SP leaders.
However, the CM remained non-committal on the matter, since the direction to former UP CMs to vacate their official bungalows had come from the apex court.
In the letter to the estate department, Akhilesh claimed he did not own any premises in Lucknow to stay put with elaborate security detail. However, Shukla said the government was bound by the court order that had annulled law granting life term allotment of government accommodation to former CMs.
Disposing of a petition filed by Lok Prahari, the Supreme Court on May 7 had quashed a provision in UP Ministers (Salaries, Allowances and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1981, which entitled former CMs to official accommodation even after their term ends. Atwo-judgee bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and R Banumathi noted CMs were “at par with the common citizen” once they demitted office and allowing them to retain bungalows at public expense amounted to creating “a separate class of citizens.”
Later, the government had issued notices to 6 former CMs to vacate their official premises in compliance with the apex court directive. These included Mulayam, Akhilesh, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati, union home minister Rajnath Singh, RajasthanGovernorr Kalyan Singh and veteran Congress leader Narayan Dutt Tiwari.
While, Rajnath and Kalyan have already started the process of shifting, Mulayam, Akhilesh and Mayawati have shown unwillingness to vacate their respective bungalows.
In fact, BSP had put up a banner proclaiming the official residence of Mayawati on 13 A Mall Avenue as the resting place of party founder Kanshi Ram to exhibit defiance and to propel politics in the matter.
However, the Adityanath government has so far shown sternness to comply with the SC order.