JOIN USLegislators now want their club at Carlton House
After their move to take over the historic Balabrooie Guest House was met with stiff resistance, Karnataka legislators are now eying the sprawling Carlton House in the heart of Bengaluru for their recreation club – the Constitution Club.
The executive committee of the Constitution Club, comprising Assembly Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, PWD Minister H C Mahadevappa and senior legislators, recently decided to occupy Carlton House, which is a heritage building. Siddaramaiah has directed the PWD minister to take measures to soon hand over the entire premises to the Assembly secretariat for setting up the club, official sources in the government said.
The executive committee held its meeting on March 5 at the Vidhana Soudha on the sidelines of the legislature session. Senior MLA K R Ramesh Kumar, who is the general secretary of the club, has been asked to draw up a plan to establish the club, which has 270 members. It is exclusively meant for MLAs, MLCs, MPs, former legislators and MPs.
The club, set up in 2009, had become defunct in the last few years. It was revived last December, according to the sources.
The sources said the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), which now occupies Carlton House, will be asked to relocate. The CID has been functioning from Carlton House since 1974. The heritage building currently houses the office of the DGP (CID). The offices of seven squads of the CID are housed in annexe 1 which was built in the 1990s.
As-is-where-is basis The executive committee of the Constitution Club has also decided to use the entire property on as-is-where-is basis as it is a heritage structure.
Carlton House, which is spread over seven acres of land, was built over a century ago. It was once the office of Sir Mirza Ismail, Dewan of then Mysore State.
The club will neither modify the existing structure nor take up any new construction at the premises, the sources said. The executive committee is planning to invite President Pranab Mukherjee for the inauguration, the sources added.
The club had earlier proposed to establish its clubhouse by demolishing the historical Balabrooie Guest House on Palace Road.
The government had last year even initiated steps to hand over the guesthouse to the Assembly secretariat. But the move was met with stiff opposition from various quarters and the government was forced to drop the plan.
‘No construction for now’ Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa said the club had requested the government to allow it to use Carlton House. “Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has already directed the PWD minister to hand it over to us (Assembly secretariat).
As of now, we have no plan to take up any construction there. But we will take an appropriate decision after occupying it,” he added.