Lalu may bid adieu to Lutyens bungalow

Poll drubbing effect

Three months after he underwent a cardiac surgery, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) president Lalu Prasad is now planning to vacate the sprawling 25 Tughlaq Road residence in New Delhi and shift his base to Patna.

Lalu was allotted the bungalow in Lutyens’ zone in 2004 after he became Railway Minister in UPA I. The RJD chief wanted to retain the house on health grounds as he is still recovering from heart surgery and is under the supervision of AIIMS doctors, but with an unfriendly regime, this looks a remote possibility.

The Narendra Modi government is reportedly not keen to grant anymore extension to former ministers and wants them to vacate their bungalows at the earliest. “I had applied for extension on health grounds. But there has been no response from the authority concerned. I believe the government wants me to vacate the house. I am not Ajit Singh who wants to cling to the house and make it a memorial,” Lalu reportedly told a local daily in Patna.

Road to Rabri
RJD sources said Lalu is likely to vacate the Delhi house in the next fortnight and shift to 10, Circular Road residence of his wife Rabri Devi in Patna. This house has been allotted to Rabri for being a former chief Minister of Bihar.

Sources close to Lalu said the RJD chief’s hope to retain the house was dashed when neither Rabri nor daughter Misa Bharti could win the Lok Sabha election from Saran and Patliputra seats, respectively. Since Lalu has been barred from contesting polls following his conviction in fodder scam, he had planned that if either of his two kin could emerge victorious in the Lok Sabha poll, he would be able to retain the sprawling bungalow.

“Laluji wanted to retain this house as this was auspicious for him. He remained Railway Minister for five consecutive years. But once he demitted office, we have seen eight railway ministers (Mamata Banerjee, Dinesh Trivedi, Mukul Roy, C P Joshi, Pawan Bansal, Mallikarjuna Kharge, Sadanand Gowda and Suresh Prabhu) from May 2009 to November 2014,” the RJD source told Deccan Herald.