Damage to bungalow Charges baseless, says Akhilesh

Facing flak over the alleged damage caused to the official bungalow he vacated recently, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav sought to turn the situation to his advantage, saying that the Bharatiya Janata Party ministers were in the race to occupy the bungalow he had vacated but none was seeking allotment of the accommodations earlier occupied by two former chief ministers of BJP — Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh.

“I am at my wits’ end as to why the BJP ministers are so fond of occupying the bungalow vacated by me. I think the race among the BJP ministers seeking that bungalow bears a testimony to the performance and efficiency of the Samajwadi Party government,” Akhilesh Yadav said here on Sunday while addressing a meeting on the occasion of the birth anniversary of socialist leader Janeshwar Mishra.

Breaking his silence over the report of the inquiry committee instituted by the state government to probe the damage caused to the bungalow he vacated, Yadav said, “The charges are baseless. Some people armed with hammer and pickaxe had entered the bungalow after I vacated it.”

“Who were those persons? Their names and identities should be exposed. I will give a prize of Rs 11 lakh to whoever gives this information,” the SP president said.

Yadav also denied the charges of alternation and additional construction in the bungalow he vacated. 

“I was thrown out of that bungalow and it was not my property. No additional construction was made (in the bungalow) on my orders. Whatever changes were made were done after seeking prior approval of Lucknow Development Authority,” the former Chief Minister claimed.

Two months after he vacated the official bungalow allotted to him for being a former Chief Minister, Akhilesh Yadav is facing more trouble over allegations of damaging the building. He may get a notice from the Estate department for the damage caused to his official bungalow during his stay there.

The state government had allotted Akhilesh Yadav an official bungalow when he ceased to be the Chief Minister after the UP Assembly polls in 2017. Akhilesh Yadav along with four other former chief ministers, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Mayawati, Kalyan Singh and Rajnath Singh, had vacated their bungalows on the orders of the Supreme Court.

After Yadav left, when the state government officials took over the bungalow, they reportedly found damage to the property amounting to Rs 5.84 lakh. Subsequently, in its report, the Estate department alleged that illegal construction worth Rs 4 crore was made in the premises.