Reported By:
| Edited By: |Source: DNA |Updated: May 19, 2017, 08:33 AM IST
Besides all the other reasons that made the 2014 Lok Sabha elections a landmark event, was the tectonic shift it triggered in Lutyens Delhi. In one fell swoop, a political-bureaucratic establishment that was in power for 10 consecutive years and a culture of bipartisan patronage was displaced. In years past, the union urban development (UD) ministry had a tough time allotting bungalows for incoming ministers, MPs, and top officers because of the inordinately long time the incumbents took to vacate the premises.
Often, many politically and socially influential individuals were allowed to stay put with the ministry looking the other way. Narendra Modi and the BJP-RSS combine came to power with the promise to sweep away the “Lutyens” clique that they claimed embodied VIP culture, corruption and nepotism. In November 2014, the Centre informed the Supreme Court that it had managed to evict 363 of 374 former MPs from official bungalows.
Subsequently, the UD ministry also steeply hiked rents for squatters and evicted others like Payal Abdullah, estranged wife of former J&K CM Omar Abdullah. Now the latest moves: giving just three days for the occupants to vacate premises and taking away lower courts’ power to grant stays on eviction will effectively end VIP squatting. The crackdown on the Lutyens clique has forced those with deep pockets to shell out their own money to live in this vaunted quarter. The likes of lawyer-politician Kapil Sibal reportedly paid Rs 16 lakh per month to live at Jor Bagh in the Lutyens zone. The Centre must now review the security cover that many of these “has-beens” enjoy.
