Bungalow hits Congress-Trinamool ties

The fight against Maoists in West Bengal may have revealed differences within the Union Cabinet, with the Congress on one side and the Trinamool Congress on the other, but the real battle between the two is actually over a piece of real estate in Lutyen’s Delhi.

The Trinamool Congress had for long coveted 14 Bishamber Dass Marg, a type VII bungalow, for its party office, and with 19 MPs in Lok Sabha the party thought they would get it. The bungalow is bang opposite Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee’s home.
“When we applied for the bungalow, however, we found that it had already been allotted to a BJP MP,” a minister from the party said.

“We had thought that since Mamatadi had refused a ministerial bungalow on Akbar Road and continued staying in her flat on BD Marg, we could get this bungalow for a party office,” he said. Repeated requests to Lok Sabha House committee chief JP Agarwal went unheeded.

When DNA spoke to Agarwal, he expressed helplessness. “The flat was allotted a while back and the MP has already taken possession of it, I can hardly ask him to vacate the house now,” he said. “We have no bungalows left to allot now,” he said. Sources, however, insist that the bungalow is still empty. “It’s supposed to have been allotted to MP Ashok Argal, but the house is still empty,” a Trinamool leader said.

The party now operates out of minister of state for shipping Mukul Roy’s flat in North Avenue, hardly a convenient arrangement.

“We are finding it difficult to operate out of a residential space,” a party leader said. “We need to fix up an office space.”

“It is ridiculous that smaller parties like CPI, SP and BSP get luxurious office space in the centre of the city while the main ally of the government is begging for it,” he said.