New Delhi: Four days after he was disqualified as an MP, the Lok Sabha House Committee has sent a notice to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, asking him to vacate his official residence, ThePrint has learnt. Gandhi has been given 30 days’ time to vacate the Type VIII bungalow at 12 Tughlak Lane, failing which eviction proceedings will be initiated.
The House panel, chaired by Navsari MP and Gujarat Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief C.R. Paatil, deals with all matters related to the residential accommodations of members of the Lower House of Parliament.
“We have issued a notice today to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi to vacate the official residence allotted to him as an MP. Since he is no longer a Member of Parliament, he can’t stay in the official bungalow allotted to him,” a source in the Lok Sabha House Committee told ThePrint.
Claiming that the notice was issued at the direction of House panel chairman Paatil, the source added, “It (notice to Gandhi) was not discussed with the other committee members. As House Committee chairman, he can take decisions on such matters in consultation with Directorate of Estates, an agency under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.”
An MP is entitled to government housing as long as he/she remains a Member of Parliament. Depending on the number of terms he/she has served in Parliament, the MP is entitled to either a flat or a bungalow in Lutyens’ Delhi.
Rahul Gandhi was allotted the bungalow at 12 Tughlak Lane in 2004 after winning his first Lok Sabha election from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. Though Type VIII are the largest category of government bungalows and are allotted to serving Union ministers and Supreme Court judges, an exception was made for Gandhi, a first-time MP.
In addition to the bungalow, Gandhi was also entitled to free electricity up to 50,000 units per annum and free water up to 4,000 kilo litres per annum.
The former Congress president was disqualified as the MP from Kerala’s Wayanad via a notification issued by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on 24 March. A day earlier, a court in Surat had convicted Rahul Gandhi and sentenced him to two years in jail in a criminal defamation case filed against him for remarks he made at a pre-election rally in 2019.
Leaders from various opposition parties came together Monday to protest his disqualification, and in the process disrupted the remainder of the post-recess Budget Session of Parliament.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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