I am fortunate enough to meet and visit a number of chief ministers of different states at their official houses. They include ICS-turned-politician Govind Narayan Singh, Shyamacharan Shukla, Ajun Singh, (all from Madhya Pradesh ), Satyendra Narayan Singh of Bihar, Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra, Ramakrishna Hegde of Karnataka, N.D. Tiwari and Mulayam Singh Yadav of Uttar Pradesh, Bhairon Singh Shekhwat and Vasundhara Raje of Rajasthan, Madanlal Khurana and Sheila Dixit of Delhi, Sharad Pawar and Shankar Rao Chavan. Most of them had very good rich family backgrounds or were very senior in politics. I can also mention senior leaders Natwar Singh and Maharaja Dr Karan Singh, who belong to royal families. All these leaders had a very normal official bungalow and when the new chief minister use to shift, made some changes to furniture, curtains or repair work. Delhi in 1993 as a Union territory got an Assembly and Chief Minister Madanlal Khurana of BJP was first Chief Minister.
At present, the best example is Naveen Patnaik. He is the son of a great leader Biju Patnaik who was a freedom fighter and one of the country’s senior leaders during his political life. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s Naveen Nivas is the leafy house Patnaik inherited from his parents and which has served as his official residence for 25 years. Patnaik has been, at least in the public eye, a kurta-pyjama-wearing spartan. His two offices—one at the state secretariat and the other at home—give a glimpse into his personality. At home, which he inherited from his parents and of which he owns a one-third share valued at over Rs 9 crore, a new office was built for him during the pandemic. At the secretariat, his wooden chair has survived with torn leather for years. The cabinet meeting room has also resisted change. Only the broken tiles have been replaced, creating a colour mismatch hard to miss. Senior officers asked him to get the chair changed, or even the cabinet room refurbished, but he refuses every time. He used the Maruti Esteem for years despite its poor condition. “Being over six-foot tall, it was a problem for him to get into the car, yet he refused to change it. “Until, one day, it stalled in the rain. But, instead of going for an SUV, he insisted on an equivalent model. Hence, new Maruti Suzuki SX4s were bought.” As for his personal collection, Patnaik owns a 1980 Ambassador.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee does not own any property in her name. Since her first term in office, she has refused to move to official government accommodation for CM. She continues to reside at her paternal residence. Despite insistence from the Bengal home department and security agencies about threat perception, Mamata Banerjee has refused to move out from her existing accommodation.
In this background, recent revelation about the official residence of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is very interesting. In these reports, government records show that Kejriwal spent a whopping Rs 45 crore ($5.5 million) on renovating his official residence at Civil Lines in Delhi. The matter has led to calls for his resignation by the Opposition on moral grounds since he wasted taxpayers’ money. Allegations against Kejriwal say that he spent Rs 44.78 crore of taxpayers’ money on his official home, despite tall promises that he would live an austere life upon being chosen as the chief minister for the first time. The Delhi government spent Rs 44.78 crore ($5.3 million approx) against a sanctioned amount of Rs 43.70 crore on “addition/alteration” at the government accommodation between September 2020 and June 2022. A break-up of the amount shows that Rs 11.30 crore was spent on interior decoration and Rs 6.02 crore on stone and marble flooring. Besides, interior consultancy cost Rs one crore. Other costs include Rs 2.58 crore on electrical fittings and appliances, Rs 2.85 crore on a fire-fighting system, Rs 1.41 crore on wardrobe and accessories fittings; and Rs 1.1 crore on kitchen appliances. The curtains cost Rs one crore, the documents say. According to the documents, separately, Rs 8.11 crore out of the sanctioned Rs 9.99 crore was spent on Kejriwal’s camp office located within the premises of his official residence.
AAP has refuted all allegations, saying that the residence was in a dilapidated condition. They said that the renovations were recommended by the Public Works Department after carrying out an audit of the house. Meanwhile, the Opposition wants Kejriwal to resign for splurging taxpayers’ money on his house.
In 2013, Kejriwal used to say he will neither take a house, security or official vehicle. A lot of drama took place on this issue. But he ended up spending Rs 45 crore on the renovation of his house. Arvind Kejriwal refused to move into a five-bedroom government flat here following criticism and demanded a smaller house instead for his family. “I won’t shift to the five-bedroom duplex flat,” Kejriwal told the media. He was allotted two adjoining five-bedroom duplex flats in the heart of Delhi. He had said Friday that he would use one of them as his office. His decision sparked widespread criticism that the AAP leader, who has always advocated simple living, was moving into a cosy house. Kejriwal initially defended the duplex flat, saying he presently lived in a four-bedroom house and that this wasn’t really luxury for him. After a month, he moved to a ground-floor house with a lawn, garage etc near the Supreme Court of India in Tilak Lane. Later, he accepted a bigger bungalow which was built for Delhi Chief Secretary or provided to former chief ministers. Then he wanted renovation of this old house with the most modern comfort. This step is now becoming trouble for him and his colleagues. For the last few months, he and his Aam Adami Party have been trying to build his image as an alternative leader for future Prime Minister.
However, Arvind Kejriwal and K. Chandrashekhar Rao of Telangana facing serious charges of corruption and controversies over bungalows. Interestingly, KCR moved into a Rs 50-cr palatial 9-acre bungalow ‘Pragathi Bhavan’ with a bullet-proof bathroom in November 2016. Pragathi Bhavan covers a nine-acre area in Begumpet in the heart of Hyderabad and has a theatre that can accommodate 250 people and doubles up as an auditorium. The complex also has homes for some senior government officials, a massive conference hall, and a mini-secretariat which includes some government offices and windows fitted with bullet-proof glass. Among various jaw-dropping features of the office-cum-residence complex is a bullet-proof toilet. The new office-cum-residence is vastu compliant. The CM did not consider the office constructed during the regime of the late Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy in 2005 (at a cost of Rs 10 crore, spread over 1.5 acres), as lucky or in tune with his Vastu beliefs. He only used the residential quarters and avoided entering the office premises. The KCR government then decided to demolish the IAS Officers’ Association in Begumpet to construct a bigger residential and official complex. According to his trusted Vastu advisor, Suddaka Sudhakar Teja (who was appointed “advisor on architecture” to the government in 2015), the new complex would provide positive vibes for KCR, and any future CM. KCR’S daughter Kavitha is facing CBI probe in Delhi liquor policy and allegation money-laundering scam.
On the contrary, the Left government in Kerala was under fire over its decision to renovate Cliff House, the official residence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, spending just one crore rupees. The Congress had raised the issue in the Kerala Assembly and sought to know how the government’s declared a policy of financial austerity and is spending a whopping amount on ‘refurbishing’ the CM house.
The writer is editorial director of ITV Network—India News and Dainik Aaj Samaj.