President Southern sojourn: Rajendra Prasad started it all in mid-1950s

HYDERABAD: It was at the insistence of Babu Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India, that the annual southern sojourn came into existence in the mid-1950s. First, it began with a long sojourn of the President in the south lasting more than four weeks. Now, it's limited to just a week or less.
Documents available with the National Archives of India reveal how Rajendra Prasad had suggested the concept of southern sojourn or the second residence of the President in south India and how the raj pramukh of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan, had officially handed over Rashtrapati Nilayam in Bolarum on August 14, 1955.

Rashtrapati Nilayam was the third official residence of the President after Rashtrapati Bhavan in Delhi and Rashtrapati Nivas in Shimla. The correspondence between Rajendra Prasad and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in early 1955 revealed that the President stayed in Hyderabad during June/July of that year.
Later, Rajendra Prasad broached the question of a residence with the Hyderabad government, which offered the residency at Bolarum.
"I decided last year (1954), in consultation with the Prime Minister, that I should spend at least five or six weeks, if not eight or ten, somewhere in south every year.
"In pursuance of that decision, I spent five weeks in Mysore and Bangalore last year, and this year I have come to Hyderabad for about three weeks' stay which I am completing today," Rajendra Prasad said in his letter to Nehru on July 3, 1955. He said he may visit Andhra and Tamil Nadu later in the year-end (1955). Travancore-Cochin at the beginning of next year (1956).
"Up to now I had not thought of the President having a residence of his own in the south, but I think it would be desirable to have a sort of second residence in the south from where the President could go around and visit places in the various states in the south," Rajendra Prasad suggested in his letter.
The letter also highlighted how the President would, in this way, be dividing his time between Delhi and some place in the south. "For this purpose, a suitable site has to be selected, and I think the choice will have to be between Bangalore or Mysore on the one hand and Hyderabad on the other," the President said. He later approved Hyderabad after personally inspecting the place.
The correspondence also showed how Rajendra Prasad had gone through the layout of the city of Hyderabad showing Secunderabad and Bolarum and selected the house of the British Resident at Bolarum. After the President began staying there, it came to be known as Rashtrapati Nilayam.