Mulayam's bungalow diplomacy backfires

Samajwadi Party (SP) patron Mulayam Singh Yadav's last minute efforts to prevent his as well as other ex-chief ministers eviction from Uttar Pradesh's government bungalows failed as notices were slapped on him and others to vacate the premises within 15 days on the Supreme Court orders.

Mulayam had on Thursday met UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and handed him a letter suggesting ways to enable him and others, including Rajnath Singh, Kalyan Singh, Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav, to continue occupying the bungalows.

The letter was leaked by the CM's office on Friday, causing a huge embarrassment to the government. Two senior officials of the CMO, including Adityanath's private secretary, were suspended.

A ploy

Mulayam had suggested that the bungalows occupied by him and Akhilesh could be allotted to leaders of the Opposition in the Legislative Assembly and Council Ram Govind Chaudhary and Ahmed Hasan respectively. Both the leaders represent SP, the main Opposition party in UP.

Similarly, the other bungalows could also be allotted to BJP and BSP leaders, thereby allowing the ex-chief ministers hailing from these parties to continue in them.

The Estate department on Friday issued notices to all the ex-chief ministers, asking them to vacate the bungalows within 15 days.

The apex court had, on a PIL recently, held as unconstitutional a law enacted by the state government allowing the ex-chief ministers to occupy government bungalows. The court had said that former chief ministers were just like other ordinary citizens and cannot be given special privileges.